What is the theme in Selected Poems of Langston Hughes by Langston Hughes?

Another theme in these poems is history. While the history of blacks in the United States is the subject of a number of these poems, the author also takes African history into account. In "The Negro Speaks of Rivers," the speaker makes reference to the Congo, the Nile and the Euphrates, all three ancient rivers which flow on the African continent and whose existence and importance pre-date the American slave trade and the pain and destruction it brought. For Hughes, the black experience in Africa serves as a counterpoint to what black men and women have gone through in this country.