39 quotes
What happens
to a dream deferred?
Daddy, ain’t you heard?
Montage of a Dream Deferred (1951)
O, let my land be a land where Liberty
Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,
But opportunity is real, and life is free,
Equality is in the air we breathe.
Let America Be America Again (1935)
Dream within a dream,
Our dream deferred.
Good morning, daddy!
Ain’t you heard?
Montage of a Dream Deferred (1951)
Way Down South in Dixie
(Break the heart of me)
They hung my black young lover
To a cross roads tree.
Good evening, daddy
I know you’ve heard
The boogie-woogie rumble
Of a dream deferred
Montage of a Dream Deferred (1951)
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?
Montage of a Dream Deferred (1951)
It’s not easy to know what is true for you or me
at twenty-two, my age. But I guess I’m what
I feel and see and hear, Harlem, I hear you.
Montage of a Dream Deferred (1951)
Why should it be my loneliness,
Why should it be my song,
Why should it be my dream
deferred
overlong?
Montage of a Dream Deferred (1951)
When you turn the corner
And you run into yourself
Then you know that you have turned
All the corners that are left.
Montage of a Dream Deferred (1951)
If I were marooned on a desert island...I would miss...Jackie Ormes's cute drawings
I, too, sing America.
I am the darker brother.
They send me to eat in the kitchen
When company comes,
But I laugh,
And eat well,
And grow strong.
Daddy, daddy, daddy,
All I want is you.
You can have me, baby —
but my lovin’ days is through.
A certain amount
of impotence
in a dream deferred.
Montage of a Dream Deferred (1951)
The stars went out and so did the moon.
The singer stopped playing and went to bed
While the Weary Blues echoed through his head.
He slept like a rock or a man that's dead.
I am so tired of waiting,
Aren’t you,
For the world to become good
And beautiful and kind?
Let us take a knife
And cut the world in two –
And see what worms are eating
At the rind.
Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed —
Let it be that great strong land of love
Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme
That any man be crushed by one above.
Let America Be America Again (1935)
I tire so of hearing people say,
Let things take their course.
Tomorrow is another day.
I do not need my freedom when I’m dead.
I cannot live on tomorrow’s bread.
Montage of a Dream Deferred (1951)
O, yes,
I say it plain,
America never was America to me,
And yet I swear this oath —
America will be!
Let America Be America Again (1935)
I was so sick last night I
Didn't hardly know my mind.
So sick last night I
Didn't know my mind.
I drunk some bad licker that
Almost made me blind.
Sure, call me any ugly name you choose —
The steel of freedom does not stain.
From those who live like leeches on the people's lives,
We must take back our land again,
America!
Let America Be America Again (1935)