What Happens to a Dream Deferred?

Although Harlem Renaissance writer Langston Hughes died over fifty years ago, his poems speak to the outpouring of anger and grief we are seeing in cities all over America.

In his poem “Harlem,” Hughes asks, “What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up . . . or fester . . . or stink . . . Or does it explode?”

As we examine the killings of innocent Americans by racist police officers and look at the images of our cities in turmoil, we can see that it is not only the African-American’s dream of freedom, but the American dream itself imploding in our very faces.

Our nation groans under the weight of its own hypocrisy.

Hughes proposes a solution in “Let America Be America Again.” “Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed; Let it be that great strong land of love . . . [where] opportunity is real, and life is free; Equality is in the air we breathe.”

Equality can never mean sameness. Without difference, equality is meaningless.

The America we love, but have yet to see, does not replace equality with a system that valorizes one group over another.

Maybe we are in the throes of expelling this poisonous thinking called white supremacy so that, as Hughes concludes, “O, yes . . . America will be!”