African American GIs and the long history of Black Power
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,” Langston Hughes, Montage of a Dream Deferred, 1951