What happens to a dream deferred?
What happens to a dream deferred? This is the central question of both the poem and of the emergent identity of black america during the Harlem renaissance. In Alain Locke's essay "The New Negro" and Chandler Owen's essay "The New Negro - What is He?", the question of what it means to be a black person during the Harlem Renaissance is explored through the lens of the economy, political climate, and social climate of the time. The challenges of racism, especially integration of black people into post civil war america brings about various problems for black people that must be addressed in order for it to go well. The poem "Harlem" by Langston Hughes explores the idea of this opportunity for black people to make a new culture by asking the reader what happens to a dream that is suppressed? Locke's essay has a lot to unpack, and by analyzing it we can get a better look at what the idea of "the new negro" is. First in his essay he ...