In the poem Sinking of the Titanic, Hughes is symbolizing the way in which water is holding up the white way of life and if there’s a break in the system, then all of America can come crashing in. The white man constantly pushing down the African American man into the depths of water, not listening to his rationality because of the color of his skin. They’re trying to submerge the black man due to the ideology that the white man could do no wrong, so naturally they’re going to push the black man as far as he can go.

The Titanic boat itself is symbolizing America as a whole. In order for America to stay afloat then the white people need to work together and listen to what the African American people have been saying all along, that they’re one in the same. They can’t survive together if they aren’t willing to push away their differences and when the rich people on the ship were offering “Shine” material riches to save their lives, it didn’t make a difference. It didn’t because every time a guest of the ship offered the riches it was for their material benefit and not their moral one.

In the poem The Negro Speaks of Rivers, Hughes makes it apparent that the ancient civilizations of the world were created on the banks of rivers and were able to survive because of their rich soil. With the rivers symbolizing the African Americans, he is saying that America would not be the civilization that it is without the groundwork of the slaves. In the last stanza, the narrator says “My soul has grown deep like the rivers.” This is important because over decades of having their African culture stripped away from them, African Americans can still be able to create a culture for themselves. They’ve grown strong and they’re even more powerful against the white man because of that. He uses the word “soul” because even after slavery ended the love for their culture was imprinted on every African American person.

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