Langston Hughes The Negro Speaks Of Rivers

Langston Hughes once wrote, “In all my life I have never been free…except in the field of my writing” (qtd. in NPR). The early twentieth century marked an era in which blatant racism and discrimination limited the freedom and lives available for African Americans. The Harlem Renaissance gave way to a period that allowed influential blacks such as Langston Hughes to express themselves through the outlets of literature, music, art, and poetry. The fostering of creative expression finally gave voice to the struggles that the black diaspora has faced for centuries—a movement that unified a marginalized group to combat prejudicial injustices. Langston Hughes explores the theme of African American unity throughout the poems “The Negro Speaks of Rivers,”

Sanders cites a portion of “The Weary Blues” to highlight the passion the blues player has for his craft and the poignant response his music invokes, “The blues touch upon black sorrow, but the music of the blues makes its listeners feel better.” Hughes writes of the melancholic mood of the blues, and describes a piano player that has effectively become interconnected with his art form. The significance of the blues in relation to black culture is further expanded upon by Douglas Henry Daniels, a Professor in the Black Studies and History Departments at the University of California at Santa Barbara, “Afro-American music, whether religious or secular and popular, is like a flag or nation for black Americans…the blues music and experience give hope and strength to overcome disappointments…[it is] an art form developed in the nation by slaves and their descendants” (14, 21-22). Spirituals sung by enslaved Africans eventually transformed into the blues played by oppressed African Americans, while maintaining the same level of empowerment and significance that was needed to triumph over the sense of despair. Hughes’ glimpse into the passion of an individual jazz musician gives representation to the importance that the blues hold for African American culture. The unity expressed between jazz music and

Sanders quotes lines from “I, Too” as a means of showing that Hughes believes in a unified country without discrimination, “Ultimately, Hughes objective seems to be to provide blacks with identities as Americans, living in a democracy that ensures life without prejudice.” The African American people are destined to coexist within an integrated society while living as unified Americans rather than as blacks versus whites—as illustrated in Hughes’ assertion of a future society without the discrimination found in the early twentieth century. Hughes’ work is later utilized during the Civil Rights era of the 1960s, as discussed by W. Jason Miller, “After a five-day march from Selma to Montgomery, Coretta Scott King read “Mother to Son” to the crowd before her husband spoke” (433). Hughes’ message of African American solidarity transferred its message to a period where black empowerment was vital—The Civil Rights Movement. The application of Hughes’ poetry during a time in which African American unity was at its peak is an illustration of the influential nature of Hughes’ work. Just as Hughes looked to a future where African Americans were treated as equal citizens, Martin Luther King Jr. sought to realize this dream through his actions during the era. The effects of Hughes’ writings during the Harlem Renaissance gave