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 introduces the issue at hand. He does this by explaining the image of "the old negro" that most people perceived black people to be, and then explains how the freeing of slaves could affect this perceived image of black people. He explains that people’s perception of black people used to be a helpless thing rather than human beings. Because of slavery’s restriction on black peoples’ freedom to express themselves or have any voice, they are dehumanized and perceived as things rather than people. Locke writes, “a something to be argued about, condemned or defended, to be ‘kept down,’ or ‘in his place,’ or ‘helped up,' to be worried with or worried over, harassed or patronized, a social bogey or a social burden.” He goes on to say that this perception of black people that the white people hold clouds the perception of black thinkers post slavery. Being seen, talked, and treated like objects causes them “to see himself in the distorted perspective of a social problem”. 

But what happens when generations of oppression and dehumanization from slavery are lifted? What happens when their voices are finally able to speak? A birth of creativity, a birth of art, music, literature, spirit. Locke writes, “by shedding the old chrysalis of the Negro problem we are achieving something like a spiritual emancipation.” The incredible change brought about a new opportunity for black people, but that is not to say that everything changed. Rights were not given, liberties were not given, and social discrimination remained. Voices were finally allowed to speak, but their words were ignored and suppressed. The Harlem renaissance brought a huge wave of creativity in art, music, and literature, but they were often ignored by the masses and stayed inside of the black culture rather than spreading across cultures. I think that this is the dream Langston Hughes writes when he says “what happens to a dream deferred?” What happens to Black America's intellectual dream that is deferred by white people? 

Hughes asks the reader, “does it dry up, like a raisin in the sun?” Maybe the dream being ignored will cause its downfall, the sun drying it up and making it shriveled. Hughes then uses some repulsive imagery with his next questions, “or fester like a sore– and then run? Does it stink like rotten meat? Or crust and sugar over– like a syrupy sweet?” The purpose of the use of foul imagery was probably both to invoke strong feelings in the reader and also to reflect on how disgusting it can be to kill a dream. Black Americans may have gotten free from slavery but experienced lots of elimination of opportunities and severe discrimination, their dreams and goals drying in the sun, festering like a sore. But would it continue like this? Would oppression kill black americans’ dreams? Langston Hughes ends the poem with a powerful line in italics, “Or does it explode?” The beauty and the profound effect of this short poem speaks to the emergence of the new identity of black america and urges people to fulfill their dreams to this day.