A Dream Deferred Quotes

Harlem 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?

A dream deferred is a dream denied.

نشبه لإيه؟؟ نشبه لأي إتنين يحبوا و ميقولوش! نشبه لإيه؟ لإلي خايفين يحلموا ف مبيعيشوش و ملقوش طريق يتقابلوا فيه..نشبه لإيه؟ نشبه حكايات عيشتها..أو حلم ناقص و إنتهى.. نشبه حاجات مش وقتها..أو جرح متعود عليه نشبه لإيه؟!

What happens to a dream deferred? / Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun?

What happens to a dream deferred?

I don't see any American dream; I see an American nightmare.

I don't say Valancy deliberately murdered these lovers as she outgrew them. One simply faded away as another came. Things are very convenient in this respect in Blue Castles.

Access to a dark night sky—to see and be inspired by the universe as it really is—should be a human right, not a luxury for the chosen few.

Good morning, daddy! Ain't you heard The boogie-woogie rumble Of a dream deferred? Listen closely: You'll hear their feet Beating out and beating out a - You think It's a happy beat? Listen to it closely: Ain't you heard something underneath like a - What did I say? Sure, I'm happy! Take it away! Dream Boogie Hey, pop! Re-bop! Mop! Y-e-a-h!

Dreams aren't deferred. They don't just get deferred, either. Someone defers them. You defer them. You make a choice and put off something you dream of doing. "A dream deferred" is a copout, an escape from blame.

There are recovery programs for people grieving the loss of a parent, sibling, or spouse. You can buy books on how to cope with the death of a beloved pet or work through the anguish of a miscarriage. We speak openly with one another about the bereavement that can accompany a layoff, a move, a diagnosis, or a dream deferred. But no one really teaches you how to grieve the loss of your faith. You’re on your own for that.

Langston Hughes said it best: “A dream deferred is a dream denied.

For years, I had nightlong knife fights where I was the only person present

I believe we can keep what feels wondrous about the search for a mathematical description of the universe while disconnecting this work from its historical place in the hands of violently colonial nation-states.

Because mankind can circumvent evolutionary law, it is incumbent upon him, say evolutionary biologists to develop another law to abide by if he wishes to survive, to not outstrip his food base. He must learn restraint. He must derive some other, wiser way of behaving toward the land. He must be more attentive to the biological imperatives of the system of sun-driven protoplasm upon which he, too, is still dependent. Not because he must, because he lacks inventiveness, but because herein is the accomplishment of the wisdom that for centuries he has aspired to. Having taken on his own destiny, he must now think with critical intelligence about where to defer.

Science is supposedly about asking questions, except about scientists and how science is done.

You can't outwork a dream deferred.

How like the orchard she was. Because of her slowness and the attitude in which she held herself -seemingly deferent, quiet-it appeared even a harsh word would smite her. But it would not. She was like an egg encased in iron. She was the dream of the place that bore her, and she did not even know it.

I’m still here. The doubt, the fear, the heartbreak, the depression, the anxiety, the insecurity: It didn’t win. The people who hurt me and let me down: They didn’t win. The disappointment and the failure, and the hopes and deferred dreams: Nope. They didn’t win either.

As immigrant artists for whom so much has been sacrificed, so many dreams have been deferred, we already doubt so much. Who do we think we are? We think we are people who risked not existing at all. People who might have had a mother and father killed, either by a government or nature, even before we were born. Some of us think we are accidents of literacy. I do.

Everywhere we go, no matter how hard we try to avoid it, capitalism follows us.

I am genderless yet in my everyday life I am gendered by others. There is a distance between what people believe my gender is an how I feel inside.

What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun?

For my dream was not a dream deferred. It was a dream pursued, fought for, supported, and ultimately, realized.

Good evening, daddy! I know you’ve heard The boogie-woogie rumble Of a dream deferred Trilling the treble And twining the bass Into midnight ruffles Of cat-gut lace. –"Boogie: 1 A.M." by Langston Hughes

What dreams have they forced you to defer? Did you want to be a pilot and fly planes? Did they say you wouldn't make it in the Ivy League? Did you want to be a poet and write your poems in the stars like the ones that came before? Maybe the darkness inside stole your dreams? Left you broken and buried In a womb of despair Did you have the rise up out of the dirt, too, Learn to cultivate the light again, too? Did you ever think you would watch your parents crawling around on the floor, chasing the white ghost? Did you ever think would be next? What kind of dreams you got festering, burning inside you? How many nights you had to sit on the ceiling, Waiting for dem dreams? Chasing dem dreams Hoping they wouldn't steal dem dreams? Tell me 'bout dem dreams Tell me what dey was What dreams have they forced you to defer? And what do you plan to do about it?

Bear it in mind that tomorrow must also have its own brand of assignments. Shifting today’s work to tomorrow is an inevitable step towards massing up difficult tasks for yourself, whose risk of leading into failure is high.

It’s a life many people can’t imagine, but many people also sit in their cubicles daydreaming of a life they cannot attain. The costs of not seeking alternatives such as tiny houses are too great to not act. A dream deferred for many people is the daily life of tiny house dwellers because they acted.

Some might argue that there is human time the social phenomenon and then there is absolute time, the physical phenomenon measured by clocks. The essential point I hope you will take away here is that maybe intuition about space and time isn’t universal and that it has cultural and experiential context. What constitutes intuition and our “gut” feelings about what models of the world make the most sense must therefore also be a social phenomenon. It is something we are taught, rather than something we are born with.

There was no circumcision. Lee said circumcision was dreamed up by moralists and lotion salesmen to make hand jobs chafe, and Peggy deferred to his better judgement.

Scientist don't like being told they're wrong, and white people don't like being told that they're racist, so you can imagine how white scientist take hearing that they are contributing to dangerous social structures.

Because mankind can circumvent evolutionary law, it is incumbent upon him, say evolutionary biologists, to develop another law to abide by if he wishes to survive, to not outstrip his food base. He must learn restraint. He must derive some other, wiser way of behaving toward the land. He must be more attentive to the biological imperatives of the system of sun-driven protoplasm upon which he, too, is still dependent. Not because he must, because he lacks inventiveness, but because herein is the accomplishment of the wisdom that for centuries he has aspired to. Having taken on his own destiny, he must now think with critical intelligence about where to defer.

poet Langston Hughes #6 on top 500 poets Poet's PagePoemsQuotesCommentsStatsE-BooksBiographyVideosShare on FacebookShare on Twitter Poems by Langston Hughes : 21 / 104 « prev. poem next poem » Dream Deferred - Poem by Langston Hughes Autoplay next video 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?

Part of science, therefore, involves writing a dominant group’s social politics into the building blocks of a universe that exists far beyond and with little reference to our small planet and the apes that are responsible for melting its polar ice caps.

If there was ever a time that Silicon Valley believed it could revive the long-deferred dream of reinventing money, this was it. A virtual currency that rose above national borders fitted right in with an industry that saw itself destined to change the face of everyday life.

Just ask any subjugated thing- a wife, population, race, deferred dream and resource misappropriated, or continental plate; and it will tell you stories of inevitable fault lines of not-quite-stray bullets and strike slip boundaries, places where intensity builds and lets off small or great sparks,

The mind of the dreaming man is fully satisfied with whatever happens to it. The agonizing question of possibility does not arise. Kill; plunder more quickly, love as much as you wish. And if you die, are you not sure of being roused from the dead? Let yourself be led. Events will not tolerate deferment. You have no name. Everything is inestimably easy.

Much more interesting is the question of how we get free. What does freedom look like? When I put this question to artist Shanequa Gay, she told me, "Freedom looks like choice-making without having to consider so many others when I make those choices." I hear in Shanequa's response a deep cry for space to self-actualize, to not always be stuck in survival mode.

From Dr. J Marion Sims’s 19th Century gynecological surgery experiments on unanesthetized enslaved Black women to Tuskegee experiment on Black men and their families to careless uranium mining on Indigenous reservations and nuclear weapons testing that left Pacific Islanders to live and die with the nuclear fallout, the devaluing of Black American lives and Indigenous lives around the world has played a key role in scientific experiment and development.

Cut off entanglements. Get rid of anger and hatred. Do not be afraid of hard work. Tolerate ignominy and endure dishonor. Forgive people and defer to others. Take possessions lightly; take life seriously. View others and self as the same. Do whatever you can to be helpful. Practice developing virtue is the greatest priority; when achievement is great and practice profound, it moves heaven and earth. Ridiculous are the foolish ones who only profit themselves; with no achievement and little action, they dream of becoming immortals.

King David in Psalm 37 writes "Take delight in the Giver, and He will give you the desires of your heart," intimating that the secret to finding our way in the world is more about cooperating with God than appeasing God. That the Giver of life is also the Giver of our desires, which means that life has an invitational co-creative nature to it... Why do we always believe that the path of our deepest desire would be so far from the path that God would have us walk? How is the path of desire so different from the path to the Giver of that desire?

My hearing was not attuned to the sound of such bitterness. I guess I should not have been surprised. I should have known that in an atmosphere where false promises are daily realities, where deferred dreams are nightly facts, where acts of unpunished violence toward Negroes are a way of life, nonviolence would eventually be seriously questioned. I should have been reminded that disappointment produces despair and despair produces bitterness, and that the one thing certain about bitterness is its blindness. Bitterness has not the capacity to make the distinction between some and all. When some members of the dominant group, particularly those in power, are racist in attitude and practice, bitterness accuses the whole group.

But at this point, the price of trying to move beyond ethnoracial identities is worth paying, not only for moral reasons but also for the sake of intellectual hygiene. It would allow us to live and work together more harmoniously and productively, in offices, neighborhoods, towns, states, and nations. Why, after all, should we tie our fates to groups whose existence seems always to involve misunderstandings about the facts of human difference? Why rely on imaginary natural commonalities rather than build cohesion through intentional communities? Wouldn’t it be better to organize our solidarities around citizenship and the shared commitments that bind political society? Still, given the psychological difficulty of avoiding essentialism and the evident continuing power of ethnoracial identities, it would take a massive and focused effort of education, in schools and in public culture, to move into a postracial world. The dream of a world beyond race, unfortunately, is likely to be long deferred.

Men often defer the hopes of their wives in several critical areas, and women often unconsciously return the favor. According to relationship expert Dr. Gary Smalley, the four greatest needs of a woman are: (1) emotional and physical security, (2) the need for regular meaningful communication, (3) nonsexual touch, and (4) romance. Each night when a husband comes home, his wife (sometimes without even knowing it) hopes that these needs will be addressed and fulfilled. They want to feel the security of his love and commitment; the safety of being able to express their feelings and opinions without being interrupted or criticized. They want to be held and caressed without it being linked to the husband’s need for sex. They want to be listened to and have the chance to talk about their day. They want to be able to talk about their hopes, desires, and dreams. They want to hear about their husband’s day. They want to feel connected. And, they want to be romanced. They want to feel valued for who they are, not just what they do. And how do husbands defer their

For all of our darker impulses, for all of our shortcomings, and for all of the dreams denied and deferred, the experiment begun so long ago, carried out so imperfectly, is worth the fight. There is, in fact, no struggle more important, and none nobler, than the one we wage in the service of those better angels who, however besieged, are always ready for battle.

Going inward was not easy. By looking outward, I could create my ideal home, a dream that I had previously deferred in the interest of family harmony.

A dream deferred does not dry up and blow away, it does not evaporate into the vanished years of your youth. It latches onto your ribcage, swells with each passing day, pushing apart your ribs, a tumor of discontent. A dream deferred takes on a life of its own.

Their dream deferred became my dream referred.

I returned to the university only after the Second World War, and, even then, not having been in the resistance, I had political difficulties." "Why weren't you in the resistance?" "I was tired. And you have to have a certain temperament. You have to be fixed on the point. You need what politicians have, which is the absence of a sense of mortality. It comes, like a drug, from adoration and deference. Revolutionaries get it from dreams. They say that nothing is apolitical, that politics, the bedrock of life, is something from which you cannot depart. I say, fuck them.

We had a lengthy discussion of the difficulties I had had working on other biographies and the efforts made by Martha Gellhorn, Susan Sontag and others to prevent publication. Gellhorn’s representative, Bill Buford, sent a threatening letter to my publisher. Michael, a journalist first, called Buford a “dirty dog.” I never dreamed, then, that he, too, would, in the end, assume a rather high-handed attitude towards my manuscript, ordering me to make changes and deferring to the feelings of others. On this day, I said: “I don’t respond well to those threats. I don’t allow them to intimidate me.” “We don’t believe in authorised biographies,” Michael concluded. “All authorised biographies are hereby condemned.” I would remember these words later when Michael the Apostate appeared.

Yet, as Brandon explained with a mixture of bitterness and regret, college proved to be the start of a long series of disappointments. Unable to pass calculus or physics, he switched his major from engineering to criminal justice. Still optimistic, he applied to several police departments upon graduation, excited about a future of “catching crooks.” The first department used a bewildering lottery system for hiring, and he didn’t make the cut. The second informed him that he had failed a mandatory spelling test (“I had a degree!”) and refused to consider his application. Finally, he became “completely turned off to this idea” when the third department disqualified him because of a minor incident in college in which he and his roommate “borrowed” a school-owned buffing machine as a harmless prank. Because he “could have been charged with a felony,” the department informed him, he was ineligible for police duty. Regrettably, his college had no record of the incident. Brandon had volunteered the information out of a desire to illustrate his honest and upstanding character and improve his odds of getting the job. With “two dreams deferred,”2 Brandon took a job as the nightshift manager of a clothing chain, hoping it would be temporary. Eleven years later, he describes his typical day, which consists of unloading shipments, steaming and pricing garments, and restocking the floor, as “not challenging at all. I don’t get to solve problems or be creative. I don’t get to work with numbers, and I am a numbers guy. I basically babysit a team and deal with personnel.” When his loans came out of deferment, he couldn’t afford the monthly payments and decided to get a master’s degree—partly to increase his earning potential and partly to put his loans back into deferment. After all, it had been “hammered into his head” that higher education was the key to success. He put on twenty-five pounds while working and going to school full-time for three years. He finally earned a master’s degree in government, paid for with more loans from “that mean lady Sallie Mae.”3 So far, Brandon has still not found a job that will pay him enough to cover his monthly loan and living expenses. He has managed to keep the loans in deferment by continually consolidating—a strategy that costs him $5,000 a year in interest. Taking

Be careful who you let define your good. —Lois McMaster Bujold, science fiction writer • Why is learning to sift through possibilities and to prioritize them one of our key developmental tasks as women? • Do you have any dreams that are currently intersecting? How are you prioritizing them? • If you are deferring a dream, have you considered keeping a journal that outlines how what you are doing now will help you achieve your dream? • Some dreams that we all deserve may go unrealized indefinitely. Do we honor that loss? • Unrealized dreams may also lead to unimagined opportunities, new dreams, and happiness. What unrealized dreams have freed up the resources (time, money, energy) that you can reinvest in your current dreams? • Is it time to redirect or shift one of your dreams? • Is there something that you used to love to do that you’ve set aside? Is it possible that you can combine your childhood skills with the ones you’ve since acquired, to tell yourself a new story—one that is fresh and relevant to you today? • Do you have a dream that needs to be supersized? What do you need to make this happen? And if you are holding back—why?

Many Americans that get caught up in the lie called the American Dream do exactly this: they work to buy then die. This is also known as the deferred life plan; where you attend school and work for the first 40 years of your adult life so you can live when you retire at age 60 or later. Many that follow this plan end up with broken marriages, alienated children, crushed dreams, boredom, obesity, poor health, and a house to sleep away the pain in and further propagate the nightmare. Why does this happen? Because we are taught that we cannot live unless we have a house to do it in. Nonsense! Not everyone needs a house. Even those who want a house now, will at many times in their life wish they did not have it, and could instead do something else with their life.

Hope deferred makes the heart sick,        but a dream fulfilled is a tree of life.

Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a dream fulfilled is a tree of life. —Proverbs 13:12

There are verses that talk about this -- Pro 13:12 Hope deferred maketh the heart sick: but when the desire cometh, it is a tree of life. Col 3:21 Fathers, provoke not your children to anger, lest they be discouraged. Children, in order to thrive and become healthy, loving adults, need to be able to have attainable goals.  We need to be able to have our hopes come to fruition. When we are told what to do and we do it, we need to have that be good enough in the eyes of our parents.  When that hope is deferred, endlessly squashed, a child loses hope and may eventually stop trying.  But when that hope is satisfied through parental approval and love, it really is like a tree of life.  Being able to make a parent happy with us – well, it’s the deferred dream of many, many wounded children and adults.  And it wouldn’t be in the Bible if God Himself didn’t recognize it as true. 

Nothing is too difficult unless you decide to keep shifting it to tomorrow till you can’t do it any longer.

PRAY the Power of Hope Father, I am so grateful for the treasury of tools purposely placed in Your Word for overcoming hope deferred. Your mercy, love, and power are so great that the moment I reposition my heart toward You, You meet me at my point of pain with Your healing presence. Today I choose to draw close to You, and I choose to come into agreement with Your words of life and truth. Come and enthrone Yourself in my heart. No longer will I allow painful circumstances to control my life. I position my heart to heal. SCRIPTURES

The Haunt The haunt walks counting the bodies held in cubicle chambers; each night the rattle of his keys reminds one of the living dead who are keyless. The Turnkey continues his nightly watch to ensure none of the living dead commits suicide. To be truly dead is forbidden, unless the State sanctions the kill. This ritual first began as a means of penitence, and Auburn was the first N.Y.S. penitentiary and silence was the means to repentance, silence and reading the bible. Back then, the penitent memorized the portions of the bible: when Cain killed Abel, Joshua’s war on Jericho, and all about Ruth, Mary, and Esther — with little thought of God. Over 100 years, the haunt walks with the sanctimonious sentiments of a sentinel, with self-righteous indignation which the living dead attempt to repel with false braggadocio — but when the lights go out, the sudden screams, and all- night talk to prohibit nightmares — awaiting the dawn — permit the haunt to smile with arrogant knowing. The torture of the night is the haunt’s pleasure, making the rounds smelling the decay of dreams deferred, the putrid stench of justice, like the full bowels of slave ships. Gun towers stand reminiscent of the hanging trees with its strange fruit that the haunt picks at leisure appraising its ripeness in terms of life sentences. As steel bangs against steel, chains clang with the echoes of gangs dressed in strips of day and night, black and white; the fright prohibits flight as jail cells constrict and severely depict the absence of liberty. The haunt of Auburn, year by year decade by decade, in a century has never escaped the nightly count of tormented souls, himself chained to the ball of the imprisoned — a spirit’s horror of lost freedom.

During moments of national importance, it feels as though bills will be paid and mortgages covered, dreams no longer deferred. It feels as though, maybe, it can be less about money than about honor.

she had other plans for herself. Dreams she would not, could not, defer or yield entirely.

Thinking about how many years--decades, actually--I'd deferred my dream of learning to play the guitar, I find it remarkable that I finally took it up not long before Dennis got sick.

calling is actually deeply entangled with white supremacist ableist heterocispatriarchy. But it is.

If our society is defined by white supremacist heterocispatriarchal capitalist values, science must contend with how it is shaped by those values.

The murders of trans people become a springboard for making a milquetoast point about being nicer to trans people at work, rather than radically restructuring society to protect trans lives.

But as a scientist, and by that I mean someone who seeks to look past biases to produce convincing and accurate models of how the universe works,

Whispers of the Sou In the quiet realm where shadows play, A restless mind lost in the endless fray. No respite was found in the arms of sleep, Just wandering thoughts, in silence, deep. No words exist to capture the ache, The soul's turmoil, a relentless quake. In this vast expanse of unspoken pain, A heart's echo, a lone refrain. I walk the corridors of my own mind, A ceaseless journey, no rest to find. Words falter to describe the unknown, A symphony of thoughts in a world of their own. If emotion had language, would it speak of woe? Of dreams deferred and seeds that never grow. A paradox unfolds, reality's bitter twist, In the paradox of existence, a mystery persist. I am, yet why not, a question unanswered, In the tapestry of life, a thread unmastered. The universe weaves its cosmic design, Yet, in waiting, I linger, in the labyrinth of time. Thoughts dance like shadows, elusive, untamed, Yet consciousness binds, a truth unclaimed. A grand plan unfolds in the cosmic scheme, Yet, in the unfolding, reality may seem. I ponder the grandeur of the universe's art, Yet reality echoes, tearing worlds apart. For in the waiting, a patience wears thin, A relentless yearning for a destiny to begin. In the symphony of silence, a poet's plea, To articulate the ineffable, set emotions free. No language coined, no verse complete, In the corridors of thought, where echoes repeat. And as the stars bow to the night's embrace, A revelation dawns, a celestial grace. For in the quiet realm where shadows play, A serenade of hope whispers, lighting the way. In the tapestry of silence, a new verse is spun, A symphony of resilience, a battle not yet won. As the echoes fade, a metamorphosis takes flight, In the dance of shadows, emerges the eternal light.

According to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, in order for a clinician to make an official diagnosis of NPD, a patient must present five or more of the following personality traits: He has a grandiose sense of self-importance (exaggerates accomplishments and demands to be considered superior without real evidence of achievement). He lives in a dream world of exceptional success, power, beauty, genius, or “perfect” love. He thinks of himself as “special,” or privileged, and that he can only be understood by other special or high-status people. He demands excessive amounts of praise or admiration from others. He feels entitled to automatic deference, compliance, or favorable treatment from others. He is exploitative toward others and takes advantage of them. He lacks empathy and does not recognize or identify with others’ feelings. He is frequently envious of others or thinks that they are envious of him. He has an attitude or frequently acts in haughty or arrogant ways.

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?

Much more interesting is the question of how we get free. What does freedom look like? When I put this question to artist Sheniqua Gay, she told me, "Freedom looks like choice-making without having to consider so many others when I make those choices." I hear in Sheniqua's response a deep cry for space to self-actualize, to not always be stuck in survival mode.

Why do we always believe that the path of our deepest desire would be so far from the path that God would have us walk? How is the path of desire so different from the path to the Giver of that desire?

The mind of the dreaming man is fully satisfied with whatever happens to it. The agonizing question of possibility does not arise. Kill; plunder more quickly, love as much as you wish. And if you die, are you not sure of being roused from the dead? Let yourself be led. Events will not tolerate deferment. You have no name. Everything is inestimably easy.

The seed of a tree falls from the safety of its branch onto concrete. Another finds ground but there is no rain. Another is chewed up and eaten by an animal. Another is so lucky as to sprout but then is thwarted under a falling log. None of these things is a tree. The seedlings of animals, including humans, are no less voluminous and their deaths no more tragic. This process of selection is repeated naturally and necessarily for every actualized human being as for every mighty oak. For every tree in the forest, there are thousands of tree dreams deferred. To pull out the hearse and have a funeral for every aborted fetus is indicative of

Beneath a common banner of classically liberal ideals, countless tastes and traditions may mingle and mutate into ever new and exciting flavors. Thus would be born a homeland where the Sufi dances with the Breslover round the neon jungle of Times Square, where the Baptist of Alabama nods along to the merry melodies of Klezmer, where the secular humanist combs the Christian gospels and poems of Rumi for their many pearls of wisdom, where the Guatemalan college student learns to read Marx and Luxemburg in their original German, where the Russian refugee freely markets her own art painted in the style of Van Gogh and Monet, where the Italian chef tosses up a Lambi stew for his Haitian wife’s birthday while the operas of Verdi and Puccini play on his radio, where two brothers in exile share the wine of the Galilee and Golan while listening to the oud music of Nablus and Nazareth, where the Buddhist and the stoner hike through redwood trails and swap thoughts of life and death beneath a star-spangled sky. In this America, only the polyglot sets the lingua franca, the bully pulpit yields to the poets café, decent discourse finds favor over any cocksure shouting match, no library is so uniform as to betray to a tee its owner’s beliefs, no citizen is so selfish as to live for only themself nor so weak of will as to live only for others, and such a land—as yet a dream deferred, but still a dream we may seize—such a land would truly be worthy of you and me.

I say I do not wish to be counted as an ignoramus and an ingrate toward Nature and toward God. For if they have given me my senses and my reason, why should I defer such great gifts to the errors of some mere man? Why should I believe blindly and stupidly what I wish to believe, and subject the freedom of my intellect to someone else who is just as liable to error as I am?

this reform answers white stigma before all else, it has an indifference, if not resistance, to the true needs of blacks that mimics the indifference of oppression. Diversity, multiculturalism, affirmative action, and the propriety of political correctness are all icons of white racial virtuousness that never engage the independent will, character, or determination of blacks. With deference and license they try to buy white moral authority. And in these iconographic schemes, blacks themselves are often mere icons, carriers of white virtuousness, brought in to “diversify” an environment. They are as humanly invisible to the purveyors of diversity as they were to the segregationists of old.

SATURDAY, APRIL 4 Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. Galatians 6:9 (NIV) WRITING IS MY CALLING. EVEN without compensation, I would write. My latest book explores the life of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. I wrote the first draft in 2005. Countless editors rejected it. Over ten years, I rewrote the manuscript no fewer than eight times. Each new revision was denied for publication. As an orator and Bible scholar, Dr. King said, “Faith is taking the first step even when you don’t see the whole staircase.” I was tempted to quit on many days as my manuscript received mountain-high rejection notices. Isaiah’s words comforted me, “But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint” (Isaiah 40:31, KJV). Ultimately I did not quit or cave to self-defeat, and my book was finally published in 2018. The decade that I spent revising the text proved to be a priceless exercise in learning patience and sharpening my writing skills. My dream was deferred, but it was not denied. And here is a spiritual nugget that was gleaned from my ten-year writing journey: The soul will grow weary when it toils toward an unseen promise. Yet, as I labor to attain the vision that I hold for myself, the Spirit of the Lord strengthens my heart and emotions as I press ahead. What are you laboring to achieve? If you refuse to quit, Jesus will touch you with His unwavering perseverance. Despite what happens in the process, never give up on yourself. Press onward. Jesus will bring you to a successful finish. —ALICE THOMPSON

We speak openly with one another about the bereavement that can accompany a layoff, a move, a diagnosis, or a dream deferred. But no one really teaches you how to grieve the loss of your faith. You're on your own for that.

To the veterans returning to Ohio after the battle, Lincoln made some brief remarks as they prepared to go west. No one knew when the war would end; no one knew if Lincoln, who was facing reelection in November, would even be president in a matter of months. He spoke not with the poetry of Gettysburg, but his words on that August day said much about why the salvation of the Union would repay any price in blood and toil and treasure. The tall, tired president, his face heavily lined, his burdens unimaginable, was straightforward. “It is,” he said, “in order that each one of you may have, through this free government which we have enjoyed, an open field, and a fair chance for your industry, enterprise, and intelligence; that you may all have equal privileges in the race of life with all its desirable human aspirations—it is for this that the struggle should be maintained, that we may not lose our birthrights—not only for one, but for two or three years, if necessary.” And, finally: “The nation is worth fighting for, to secure such an inestimable jewel.” For all of our darker impulses, for all of our shortcomings, and for all of the dreams denied and deferred, the experiment begun so long ago, carried out so imperfectly, is worth the fight. There is, in fact, no struggle more important, and none nobler, than the one we wage in the service of those better angels who, however besieged, are always ready for battle.

passed the fundamental test of leadership: Despite all his shortcomings and all the inevitable disappointments and mistakes and dreams deferred, he left America, and the world, in a better place than it had been when he first entered the arena of public life.

Male investment and female disinvestment in jobs then fuels the inequality in parenting. The asymmetries between the parents in pursuing their aspirations, deferring to spouses, and taking time off or reducing time in paid work may perpetuate an unequal balance at home and at work. When these asymmetries result in men's deriving greater financial and psychological rewards at work than their wives, inequality at home just seems to make sense. But when men like Jonathan start making the same kinds of choices as women, putting family ahead of career, the logic of inequality is no longer compelling. He shows us that just as women have always done, men can limit their time working and even sacrifice some of their dreams for achievement. It isn't easy. Even Jonathan lives with regrets about his career, but he also knows that his career sacrifices have allowed him the happiest parts of his life, caring for his children. -Halving it All

It’s a book. Iz would give me a book. I trace the aged leather, the letters pressed into the weathered cover. Montage of a Dream Deferred by Langston Hughes. I flip open the front cover, and my blood stands still in my veins when I note the date—1951—and the famous poet’s autograph. A signed first edition. I turn to the spot slotted by an index card, a crisp contrast to the worn, fragile pages. The poem is “Harlem,” and the familiar refrain asking what happens to a dream deferred stings tears in my eyes. I can’t ever read this poem without remembering the day my cousin died in the front yard. There are some moments in life that will always haunt us, no matter how many joys follow, and that day is one of those. I’ll never forget reciting this poem in my bedroom closet to keep Jade calm while one of her brothers shot the other. Iz couldn’t know its personal significance to me, but as I read the card, I understand why he chose it. GRIP, Our brothers live so long with dreams deferred, they forget how to imagine another life. For many of them, all they know is frustration, then rage, and for too many, the violence of finally exploding. You symbolize hope, and I know you take that responsibility seriously. I hope you know I believe that, and that nothing I’ve said led you to think otherwise. Bristol’s right—our biases are our weaknesses. Few are as patient as she is to give people time to become wiser. Thank her for me, for giving me time and for encouraging you to work with me. Together, I think we will restore the dreams of many. Merry Christmas, Iz

I can’t move. My shoes stick to the thin, cheap carpet in my bedroom. The smell of death invades my nose like an enemy, and my heart trills in my chest, hammering a rapid beat. My breath wheezes from my throat, and my head spins. I grasp for consciousness, searching for the words that calmed me moments ago. Moments before a bullet split our world right down the middle. I mumble the final lines of “Harlem,” even though I’m the only one listening, and I reach the same conclusion Hughes does. So here in these streets, in my neighborhood, what happens to a dream deferred? It explodes.

A kind of sundering was taking place within me: There was the good-natured patient, young and spunky and cheerful, who raged courageously against her disease, determined to make the best of her terrible circumstances, and this new version, envious, short-fused, sleeping sixteen hours a day and rarely ever leaving her room. On Sunday nights, when Will packed his bags, preparing to leave Saratoga for the workweek, I wanted to put on a happy, supportive face. I tried. But as the weeks passed and I got sicker, it grew harder. It was unfair of me to resent him for going—not least because I was the one who had convinced him to take the job—but an anger unlike any I’d experienced before was building inside me, contained for now, but threatening to consume everything around me. Will, the social worker, everyone else who was out there participating in the world—they weren’t the enemy, the disease was. I knew that, but with each day, each dream deferred, it got harder and harder to tell the difference.

Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a dream fulfilled is a tree of life. PROVERBS 13:12, NLT

By the middle to the end of the 1970s, Black Power as we envisioned was a dream deferred. And I was no longer in a position to awaken the minds of the people about what was happening.

When we are children, we often have no real responsibilities. We don’t have to earn money to buy food or pay the rent. Because of this, when we are children, we can dream big because there are no obstacles to stop us. We imagine the life we want to have when we become adults. As we grow, the responsibilities pile up. We need to get good grades in school. We want to make enough money to buy something we desire. We get married and have to raise a family. The accompanying stresses also pile on. All of them grind us down little by little until we either have to alter our original dream of what our life would be like or defer the date we expect to achieve our goal.