Black Legacy 365: Langston Hughes
Born on February 1, 1902, in Joplin, Missouri, Langston Hughes was a writer, poet, social activist, and a leader of the Harlem Renaissance.
In one of his most famous poems, “The Negro Speaks of Rivers,” written when he was just 17 years-old, Hughes evokes and speaks to the depths of the souls of Black people everywhere and across time. His poem reminds us how so much of black life and history is carried upon the currents of deep, mighty, and sacred waters—our cultures, legacy, and history. The waters named in his poem (the Euphrates, Congo, Nile, and Mississippi) are perhaps the most well-known of the countless rivers, streams, tributaries, and creeks that connect Black people to the land, each other, and to the world.
A brief biography of Hughes at poets.org notes: “Unlike other notable black poets of the period such as Claude McKay, Jean Toomer, and Countee Cullen, Hughes refused to differentiate between his personal experience and the common experience of black America. He wanted to tell the stories of his people in ways that reflected their actual culture, including their love of music, laughter, and language itself alongside their suffering.” Hughes celebrated everyday black language, black culture, and black people, and so should we all. Today, let us celebrate a dream no longer deferred in the life and legacy of Langston Hughes.
The Negro Speaks of Rivers
I’ve known rivers:
I’ve known rivers ancient as the world and older than the
flow of human blood in human veins.
?
My soul has grown deep like the rivers.
?
I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young.
I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep.
I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it.
I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln
went down to New Orleans, and I’ve seen its muddy
bosom turn all golden in the sunset.
?
I’ve known rivers:
Ancient, dusky rivers.
?
My soul has grown deep like the rivers.