The Dream: One Day It Will Be Fully Realized

Harlem, written by Langston Hughes and published in 1951 refers to a dream of freedom and equality. The Harlem Renaissance began in the 1910’s and lasted through until the mid-1930’s. This period marked a golden age for African American art, literature, music and culture. Harlem was the epicenter of this cultural explosion and writers like Langston Hughes, musicians such as Fats Waller, Bessie Smith and Louis Armstrong became icons of their time.

Despite the surge of African American culture, racial injustice and segregation still hung heavy. The clubs in Harlem that were presided over by kings and queens of the renaissance would not allow those kings and queens to patronize the clubs. The dream was tangible and in the spotlight of a stage, behind the gleam of a silver microphone, it almost seemed to have been achieved.

Hughes writes:

What happens to a dream

deferred?

Does it dry up

like a raisin in the sun?

Or fester like a sore—

And then run?

In 1959, Lorraine Hansberry wrote a play that would be performed on Broadway which derived its name from Hughes' poem, A Raisin In The Sun. The play addresses prejudice and racial injustice faced by the characters in the play who are all attempting to achieve their dreams. Their dreams are for a better life, a better place to live and raise their families and better life opportunities. Despite the obstacles that they encounter, they stay their course and decide individually and as a whole, not to allow their dreams to be deferred.

Hughes continues:

Does it stink like rotten meat?

Or crust and sugar over—

like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags

like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?

An idea that is tested and fought over and over again will bend but will it break? The dream of freedom and equality has been, throughout American history, been almost realized and then snatched away countless times. The Emancipation Proclamation (1863) freed some; the 13th Amendment (1865) abolished slavery but did nothing to dispel discrimination; the 14th Amendment (1868) gave citizenship to all people born within the United States and the 15th Amendment (1870) gave Black Americans (men only) the right to vote. There was forward movement toward the actualization of the dream but it was not arrived upon. In 1896, the Supreme Court ruled that separate but equal was constitutional (Plessy v Ferguson) and discrimination and segregation ensued.

Race riots are the answer to “Or does it explode?” No person or people can continually over centuries be enslaved, discriminated against, segregated and mistreated without fighting back.

In 1963, a century after the Emancipation Proclamation was issued by President Abraham Lincoln, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. stood on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial and gave what would be forever known as the "I Have A Dream" speech. He carried the hearts and hopes of a people in that his dream was one where equality and freedom manifest. Dr. King boldly declares, "So even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream. I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal."(NPR)

The dream is heavy and over time it has developed rot, but the magic of a dream is that it is not bound by the laws of physics, gravity or that of space and time. A dream may dim and then come back to life stronger after an explosion. A dream is like manzanita which needs the heat of fire in order for its seeds to open and then to grow. Those that have come before us, dreaming hard and with every fiber of their being, are the flames that fortify us to continue the pursuit of the dream and one day we will wake up to find that our collective dreams have been realized.