Langston Hughes, born James Langston Hughes, was born in Joplin, Missouri. At the age of 17, while on a train ride to Mexico, Hughes wrote the infamous poem, “The Negro Speaks of Rivers”. In Mexico, Langston visited is multi-racial father who didn’t think he would be able to make a living at writing. Therefore, to prove his father wrong, Langston traveled around the world and wrote several novels, poems, plays, essays, and children’s books.

Nevertheless, while on the train, Hughes saw the ever flowing Mississippi River. “The muddy Mississippi made Hughes think of the roles in human history playe

Although all slaves were treated cruel and unjust, women had it worst in the world. They were raped by their masters and they were treated like dogs from the master’s wife if she found out. At the same token, a mother had to always be prepared for the day that her child or children may be sold into slavery. She was lucky if she had a child by her master because he most likely would not sell them in a slave auction. “I’ve seen its (the Mississippi River) muddy bosom turn all / golden in the sunset.” “It’s muddy bosom connects it to the Negro mother who nurtured her babies despite the fact that they could be taken away from her at any time and despite the fact that some of the fathers were the white masters. In the end, after a life of cruel hardship, the heavenly rewards came at death, at sunset. The black mother and her progeny, who abandoned their spirituality but refined it into music, poetry and dance, are now seen for their true value, revealed in the light as golden,” (Bolan).

In the last line of the poem, Hughes states, “My soul has grown deep like the rivers.” “Now we understand more profoundly what the speaker means, for each of these rivers has nurtured the Negro and some have transported him as a slave. These people, these Negroes, have come out of Africa, and later out of slavery, and they have flourished in the fertile crescent of their spirituality and contributed much to world civiliz

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