What Happens to a Dream Deferred? Ask Martin Luther King Jr.

By John W. Whitehead

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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?—Langston Hughes, “Harlem”

king deferredMartin Luther King Jr. could tell you what happens to dreams deferred. They explode.

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