Curated teaching resource
Harlem (A Dream Deferred) by Langston Hughes
By Langston Hughes (from Montage of a Dream Deferred, 1951)
- Collection
- Teaching Activities
- Subject
- English Language Arts
- Grades
- Grades 7-12
- Format
- Clean Text
- Curriculum
- Cross-curricular
- Publisher or host
- poetryfoundation.org
Why this resource is included
The poem that names the campaign’s setting. What happens to a dream deferred? In the campaign: this poem is the dimension’s thematic ground. Roger’s dream of blue suede shoes is a deferred dream. Mrs. Jones’s past (hinted at but never specified) contains deferred dreams. In the fictional 1958 Harlem: the poem’s images (raisin in the sun, festering sore, heavy load, explosion) might appear literally in the dreamscape. Free, no registration.