The Negro Speaks of Rivers by Langston Hughes

"I’ve known rivers:

I’ve known rivers ancient as the world and older than the flow of human blood in human veins."

This is a nice quote to start with. We all know rivers are old and have been there since the first man appeared on earth…

"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 think the comparison of the soul with the rivers was perfect, but what really helped me to understand the poem was when he mentions the most famous rivers in the history of humanity. Which makes me think also of the first man on earth, the first race and the first civilization ever. 

Black people have always been present in our lives, mostly as slaves, and that is what the author is trying to tell us… “Hey I have been here all my life as a slave, my civilization has been in every civilization.” They have actually gone all around the world, so this poem is talking about the story of black people since the world was created.