Hughes Promotes the African Civilization Essay

Still recognized as one of the literary giants of America, Langston Hughes played an important role as a writer and thinker of the Harlem Renaissance. This was an artistic movement of African Americans that arose during the 1920s to celebrate the lives and culture of Africans in the United States (Langston Hughes). Because most of the African Americans had been brought to the New World as slaves of white masters, it was poets and writers similar Hughes, an African American man, that helped to change the perception of African Americans in the musical themes of the whites erstwhile slavery had been abolished.Hughes poesys, The inkiness Speaks of Rivers published in 1926, and lightlessness published in 1958, therefore depict African Americans as ordinary human beings like everybody else, and yet richer in culture and civilization than many opposites, seeing that they permit bureauicipated in the construction of the great pyramids, mentioned in both poems (Hughes, 2007 Hughes). Hughes was direct and open about the fact that his literary productions were meant to uplift the conditions confronting Africans in the United States (Hughes, 1923). They had been slaves, so therefore the whites did not respect them enough even aft(prenominal) the abolishment of slavery.The blackamoor Speaks of Rivers was published five years after the Tulsa Riot and during the Harlem Renaissance (Race Riot, Lynchings, and another(prenominal) Forms of Racism in the 1920s). Negro, on the other hand, was published at a time when racism was considered a bigger problem than before. In fact, during the 1950s racism was at the forefront of American vox populi (Lewis, 2002). Many battles were fought to sterilise blacks equal to whites in the minds of all Americans. Hughes contribution of the 1950s, his poem Negro, was only different to the point that it was an artists contribution.Countless other Africans were fighting on the streets of America to set things right once and for all. Both poems, The Negro Speaks of Rivers and Negro, are expressions of African American identity. The first poem begins thus Ive know rivers (Hughes). In the second as in the first, although the poet has make clear that the narrator is a negro the poem, Negro begins with the words, I am a Negro (Hughes, 2007). Because the whites had been masters over African slaves, they were inclined to look overthrow upon Africans. Since the whites were proclaimers of property in America and certainly richer, the blacks longed to be like the whites.But, Hughes would like the Africans to feel at syndicate in their own skins. With images of rivers as grand as of the Euphrates, the Nile and the Mississippi the poem, The Negro Speaks of Rivers, reminds the African of his or her historic roots or the history of the great African peoples who have traveled across all of these rivers adding think of to the historical streams of cultures. The poem has irregular, long lines without rhythm because it is making a basic point the African brain is as profoundly as any human soul could be. The African individual indulges in racy thinking as he travels across ancient rivers.What he must dwell on is his own identity on foreign soil. Remembering the history of his civilization, he must keep in mind that life carries on. Whats more, the poet reminds his fellow African that the black race has survived despite all odds (Hughes). Because The Negro Speaks of Rivers was published during the peak of Harlem Renaissance, it meets to depth of the African soul, given that art is often understood as the illustration of the soul and the Harlem Renaissance was all about promoting African art and culture in the United States. utilise gentle images such as the Mississippis bosom turning golden in the sunset, the poet uses his vehemence on rivers to stand as a symbol for the depth of the African soul (Hughes). Negro, published during the 1950s also mentions depths (Hughes, 2007). As in The Negro Sp eaks of Rivers, the depths mentioned by Hughes in both poems most likely refer to the depth of African knowledge too. After all, both poems refer to the history of Africans.Negro, with its sentence arrangements describing either what had happened to Africans or what they have done in the history of the African civilization also makes mention of the experiences and/or skills that set Africans apart, for example, slavery and singing (Hughes, 2007). The poet represents all Africans in both his poems, The Negro Speaks of Rivers and Negro. What is more, both poems mention the fact that the Africans were part of the labor force that built the ancient pyramids. In The Negro Speaks of Rivers, it was the African who looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it (Hughes).In Negro, the pyramid is said to have arisen under the African hand, implying that the African was greatly skilled even at the time of ancient pyramid construction (Hughes, 2007). The main difference between the two poems, The Negro Speaks of Rivers and Negro is, undoubtedly, the spirit of swear felt through the first poem versus the sense of despair mixed with hope in the second poem. Hughes must have composed The Negro Speaks of Rivers in a different assemble of mind altogether. The poem clearly promotes the African American culture and art as originating in the deep history of humanity (Hughes).Although Negro makes mention of world history too, it does not necessarily promote African American art, apart from its reference to singing. The African American may be considered as more of a laborer or low paid worker than an artist in Negro (Hughes, 2007). Perhaps the poem was not written to promote African American art at all. As mentioned previously, the 1950s truism the whites and blacks of America fighting over the question of equal rights of Africans in almost all major areas of affirm functioning, including education. There were severe problems related to racism during this period of Am erican history.Clearly, blacks were being looked down upon. It was in the humor of that hour that Hughes composed Negro. The poem speaks of the ordinariness of the African individual while describing the good uses that Africans have been made of, for example, in the construction of the Woolworth Building (Hughes, 2007). The Negro Speaks of Rivers is certainly not dismal or depressing like Negro, mainly because it does not make mention of slavery and victimization as the second. After all, Hughes is fighting against dark toward African Americans in the 1950s.In the 1920s, his cause was entirely different. If The Negro Speaks of Rivers had made frequent mention of tail as does Negro, the Harlem Renaissance could not have been considered a harbinger of hope (Hughes, 2007). References Hughes, L. (2007, Dec 2). Negro. Retrieved Mar 15, 2009, from http//amandafa. blogspot. com/2007/12/negro-by-langston-hughes. html. . (1926, Jun 23). The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain. The Natio n. Retrieved Mar 15, 2009, from http//www. hartford-hwp. com/archives/45a/360. html. . The Negro Speaks of Rivers.Retrieved Mar 15, 2009, from http//www. wmrfh. org/dcrews/index_files/Hughes_The%20Negro%20Speaks%20of%20Rivers. doc. Langston Hughes. Americas bill from Americas Library. Retrieved Mar 15, 2009, from http//www. americaslibrary. gov/cgi-bin/page. cgi/aa/hughes. Lewis, C. H. (2002). The Rise of the Civil Rights Movement in the 1950s. Retrieved Mar 15, 2009, from http//www. colorado. edu/AmStudies/lewis/2010/civil. htm. Race Riot, Lynchings, and other Forms of Racism in the 1920s. Retrieved Mar 15, 2009, from http//www. assumption. edu/ahc/raceriots/default. html.