Let America Be America Again

In one of his earliest and best-known poems, “The Negro Speaks of Rivers” (1921), Hughes uses two of the techniques that he would later employ in “Let America Be America Again.” The “I” of the poem identifies with a wide range of people of different races and experiences, and in presenting this, Hughes also employs the technique of anaphora (repetition of the same word or words at the beginning of a line) to structure the poem. The speaker’s soul stretches far back in time and place:

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 (Lines 4-8).

Hughes was inspired to write that poem when he was riding on a train as it crossed a bridge over the Mississippi. The description of the muddy river becoming beautiful in the sunset hints at the love of America that is apparent in “Let America Be America Again,” and the reference to the iconic figure of Abraham Lincoln suggests an appreciation of America’s highest ideals, as is also shown in the later poem.