Racial issue on Langston Hughes' "The Negro Speaks of River"

Fajar Supriono

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.

“The Negro Speaks of River” tells about the history of black, specially the Afro-American people. It tells their history from their origin of country until they are now, in United States of America. Hughes tried to construct the racial issues in this poem by the title itself “The Negro Speaks of River”. “Negro” refers to specific race that has specific characteristics and history while “river” refer to a natural thing that exist in this world from the beginning of the time. On the third stanza, the word “I” doesn’t refer to a singular form of first person but it refers to the Afro-American people generally. He also uses a narrative form in the poem to construct the racial issues. On the third stanza also tells about the origin of the Afro-American people from the beginning of the time until the present time. It is described in a narrative way by several keywords, shows the sequence of time. The keywords are, “…Euphrates when dawns were young”, “…my hut near the Congo…”, “…upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it”, “…the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln / went down to New Orleans…”

The Euphrates River believed as one of the river flow in the Garden of Eden, (others are Pison, Gihon, and Tigris) the place of origin of humankind. The line continues by “…when dawns were young” that can be interpret as the beginning of the time. Next, he mentioned Congo River, located in Africa. This river helps the black people to make living and gives them a life when they settled in Africa continent. (Line 6: “…my hut near the Congo…”). It continues by “I looked upon the Nile…” (Line 7). Nile located in Egypt where the Pharaoh ruled and made the black people as their slave to build their civilization (marked specially by the pyramids). As we saw, this period can be marked as the period the black people treated as lower/second class than the other race. Mississippi River located in Mississippi, a place where black people got discrimination at that time. New Orleans is a place represented as the place for the black people to start a new life. Nowadays New Orleans becomes a “central cultural place” for the Afro-American in USA.

Hughes uses the figurative language as the literary devices to raise the issue. On the second stanza (“My soul has grown deep like the rivers”), he uses the metaphor to affect the reader when read this poem. This metaphor makes the reader think that river mentioned in this poem influences the black people’s life throughout history. We also can use the Marxism theory to criticize the poem. Marxism theory deals with the class struggle between the “first second class societies” against the “second class societies”. In this poem, we could see the struggle of the black people (as the “second class societies”) against the other people throughout the times (from the beginning of the time until now). They fight their right to be equal in every field of life (education, politics, etc) and they did success gaining their equality nowadays although some discrimination still exists.

We can conclude that the poet use this poem to make people (black people and others) aware of their existance. The Afro-American people should realize the origin of their ancestors and the struggle in every period of time they’ve been through. Not only the struggle, that must be noticed, but also the contributions of the black people to the civilizations. This can considered that the Afro-American people in America are people that give contributions to the state and not just “a slave-descendant” people that live in the state.