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.

Description: Tells the tale of how black people have their roots ingrained in many places.

Explanation: The poem shows black nationalism. Wants those to feel proud that they are black because they have history that the white man could never take away.

Evaluation: It was chosen to show how black nationalism was now being published, where before it was banned and burned. This poem sparked a watershed in the publishment of further poems to come.

Analysis: It made the 1920 roaring, for it sparked pride and power for the weak. Black people were proud to be black and this didn’t always bode well for the white people who were oppressing them.