Consider Langston Hughes’s question “What happens to a dream deferred?” with President Bill Clinton, music legend Herbie Hancock, poet Sonia Sanchez, host Elisa New, and students from the Harlem Children’s Zone.
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by Langston Hughes
What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore—
And then run?
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?
What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore—
And then run?
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?
Harlem by Langston Hughes, by permission of Harold Ober Associates Incorporated.
President of the United States
Jazz Pianist and Composer
Poet
Harlem Newsboy (1943), courtesy of the Library of Congress
A woman and her dog in Harlem (1943), courtesy of the Library of Congress
Portrait of Langston Hughes, courtesy of the Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, Carl Van Vechten Collection, LC-USZ62-42503, LC-USZ62-92598
A Harlem Scene (1943), courtesy of the Library of Congress
