The Negro Speaks of Rivers - Rev. G. H. Caldwell

Subject: "The Negro speaks of rivers" (Langston Hughes); Rivers and much, much more.... I've known rivers: Ancient dusky rivers. My soul has grown deep like the rivers. We who have been, Colored, Negro, Black, and now African American, have a history, experience and a less-than-positive expectation of America, as no other people do. That, I believe, is what Langston Hughes (1902 - 1967) sought to convey in his, "The Negro Speaks of Rivers." "There is trouble in (not) River City" but in America today. Trouble is what we have seen and endured, and transcended. But, "We still Rise" (Maya Angelou).  The Black Lives Matter Movement and the Women's March "all over this land", indicate that if we persevere, the nation's better Angels will in time prevail, What have we who are African American "seen" in America?: 1. Slavery, Destruction of Reconstruction, Segregation, Lynchings, Voter Repression. 2. A racially Segregated Military, Public School System, and Segregation in Government(NASA) 3. The Election of Racially Insensitive/Racist Presidents Before Donald Trump, (Woodrow Wilson, and others). 4. A Consistent Economic, Educational, Jobs, etc. Gap Between African Americans and Whites. 5. Disrespect and Double Standard Judgement of the Nation's First Black President. We have wanted to be for America a people who who know first hand violations of the Declaration of Independence, Constitution, and Bill of Rights and thereby warn others of what can happen to them. Today, we are seeing, "What goes around, comes around". May we as sisters and brothers in the experiment called the USA, know as we have not known before; "When any of us suffer, all of us suffer." Or, as Martin Luther King said; "Injustice anywhere, is a threat to justice everywhere." Gil Caldwell