- 2 -

Today, when America comes to Africa, as through these library shelves,
to offer an *exchange* of knowledge, (not merely to *give* in the old patronizing
sense) America is seeking a bolstering of her *own* basic dreams, and finding
here in Africa a new strengthening of the old concept of freedom in your
liberated lands. Black Africa today is sending rejuvenating currents of
liberty over all the earth reaching even as far as Little Rock, Birmingham
and Jackson, Mississippi. Once thought of by many in the outside world as
"the Dark Continent" (in more ways than physical) today:

Africa, sleepy giant,
You've been resting awhile
Now I see the thunder and the lightening
In your smile
Now I see the storm clouds
In your waking eyes,
The thunder, the wonder, and the young surprise,
Your every step reveals the new stride in your thighs--
Uhuru, Africa!

In America today dozens of new societies and organizations devoted to
Africa have come into being, hundreds of books on Africa have been published.
The works of African writers themselves have begun to appear in print in ever
increasing volume. African students, visitors, and men of government, as do
American visitors, students, and men of government, fly back and forth across
the ocean between the continents every day. American Negroes especially have
a keen and intense pride in African achievements, in the ancient histories of
Mele, Songhoy, Ghana, in contemporary African history, and in the unlimited
African potential. Long ago when I wrote this poem, I HAVE KNOWN RIVERS, the
rivers were merely symbols, the touch of our hands symbolic. Today the touch
is real. The handclasp now is physical as well as spiritual. The sharing of the
knowledge in our souls no longer just a dream:

I have known rivers,
I have known rivers ancient as the world
And older than the flow of human blood
In human veins.

...3.

AMERICAN INTEREST IN AFRICAN CULTURE

by Langston Hughes

(Address at Opening of new USIS Center and Library, Accra, 29 June, 1962)

Official Transcript

Since I was a very small child in Kansas in the heart of the United
States, I have loved libraries. I belonged to a family that was always
moving from city to city but in every town to which we moved there was
always a public library. And whenever I came back to my hometown,
Lawrence, the library was still there, full of wonderful books that were
to me windows opening on the world. I can think of no more happy occasion
that that I should be here today to open the new American Library at Accra.
The books that you will find here are windows opening on the whole world--
and many of these books are from America.

On the part of the Negro peoples of America there has always been a
deep interest in, and a real respect for Africa. Way back in the days of
slavery, there were slaves who wanted to be free, wanted to run away and
come home to Africa. One of the basic aims of the Marcus Garvey program
in the early 1900's was to create a shipping company, the Black Star Line,
to transport Negroes to Africa. One of the features of the current Black
Muslim movement is its great regard for Africa as the homeland of the
black people. In the last decade the American government itself, and
especially the Kennedy administration, has taken a deep interest in
Africa, both politically and culturally. And American businessmen, of
course, have sent their surveyors and investors across the Western Ocean
to Africa's rich lands.

AMERICAN INTEREST IN AFRICAN CULTURE - Langston Hughes - page 2

Governments and businessmen, as everyone knows, for political and
practical reasons, have, in Africa, more than an interest of the heart.
But for the majority of the American people who are becoming more and
more attracted to Africa's vast continent, the interest is that of the
mind and the heart, an interest in people and places and things, and
especially in the great sweep of liberty that the winds of change are
bringing about in almost every section of Africa. Traditionally and
theoretically, America has always been a land of liberty. The good and
great Americans have always believed in the words of the Declaration of
Independence and of Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln and Franklin D.
Roosevelt and writers like Walt Whitman who wrote, "I sing America.....
I sing Democracy en mass." That America has often fallen far short of
her declarations and of her basic dreams, no one can deny. But that
they are there, sometimes finding, always seeking expression, no one
can deny, either.

Africa, sleepy giant,
You've been resting awhile
Now I see the thunder and the lightning
In your smile
Now I see the storm clouds
In your waking eyes,
The thunder, the wonder, and the young surprise,
Your every step reveals the new stride in your thighs--
Uhuru, Africa!

AMERICAN INTEREST IN AFRICAN CULTURE - Langston Hughes - page 3

In America today dozens of new societies and organizations devoted
to Africa have come into being, hundreds of books on Africa have been
published. The works of African writers themselves have begun to appear
in print in ever increasing volume. African students, visitors, and men
of government, as do American visitors, students, and men of government,
fly back and forth across the ocean between the continents every day.
American Negroes especially have a keen and intense pride in African
achievements, in the ancient histories of Mele, Songhoy, Ghana, in
contemporary African history, and in the unlimited African potential.
Long ago when I wrote this peom, I HAVE KNOWN RIVERS, the rivers were
merely symbols, the touch of our hands symbolic. Today the touch is real.
The handclasp now is physical as well as spiritual. The sharing of the
knowledge in our souls no longer just a dream:

I have known rivers,
I have known rivers ancient as the world
And older than the flow of human blood
In human veins.
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've known rivers:
Ancient, dusky rivers.
My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

Africa's history, like America's history--and especially the Negro
American's history, has been a troubled history, a seeking history, a
dreaming history:

There are words like Freedom
Sweet and wonderful to say.
On my heartstrings freedom sings
All day every day.
There are words like Liberty
That almost make me cry.
If you had known what I knew
You would know why.

AMERICAN INTEREST IN AFRICAN CULTURE - Langston Hughes - page 4

The *whys* are sometimes hard to explain away. But the *whys* are mostly past now, mostly gone, certainly going. None of us living today are responsible for history. But we are responsible if we do not help to overcome history, today to mould history, and right now, with more than "deliverate speed" to make a better world, in Africa and America.

Certainly the future is ours--yours and mine.

WE HAVE TOMORROW
BRIGHT BEFORE US LIKE A FLAME.
YESTERDAY
A NIGHT-GONE THING,
A SUN-DOWN NAME.
AND DAWN TODAY,
BROAD ARCH ABOVE THE ROAD WE CAME
WE MARCH!
OUR DREAMS TOGETHER,
WE MARCH!