“The dream, that magnificent dream, pursued so fiercely by my father, is still only a dream.”
1980s, A Dream Deferred (1989)
Context: During the era of segregation a term was used to describe the racist separate system that was primarily intact in the South, although of course there were vestiges of it all across the rest of the country—it was called Jim Crow. Well, in 1989 I am pleased to say Jim Crow is dead, but as has been proven by incidents that happened in Forsyth County in Georgia, Howard Beach in New York, the community of Overton in Miami, just by cross burnings on college campuses, and by racial epithets being written on the walls of many of our college facilities. These incidents and so many more that are terrifying really, when we stop and think that they are still occurring in this country, point to the fact that while Jim Crow is dead his slightly more sophisticated first born son, J. Crow, Esquire, is alive and kicking. We as black people, we as women, we as humanity have not reached the promised land. We are still wandering around bumping into each other in the wilderness. The dream, that magnificent dream, pursued so fiercely by my father, is still only a dream. Racism, sexism, injustices, inequities of all shapes and sizes remain and we have to find a semblance of real peace, not the kind of peace where everything is wonderful on the surface but things are boiling underneath. I am talking about peace with justice. My father’s utterance rings persistently—either we will learn to live together as brothers and sisters or we will perish together as fools.
