What’s a Dream Deferred When Time Doesn't Matter?
During this Black August, I sought to listen, learn, and reflect more to deepen my love, respect, and understanding of Blackness. Black August is a time of celebration and remembrance of the Black people who fought for Black liberation, typically during summer. It's a month that bears witness to the power of dreams and resilience, having its roots in the state's sentencing of George Jackson to a life prison sentence. Influenced by W.L. Nolen, Jackson became a revolutionist in abolishing prisons and standing against anti-Black state violence and systemic oppression. Jackson and Nolen led study sessions on radical philosophy, convened groups like the Third World Coalition, and started the San Quentin Prison chapter of the Black Panther Party (1). Jackson also published two books while incarcerated: Soledad Brother (1970) and Blood in My Eye (1972). Because of the rich history of Black August, I was especially interested in the change makers who “talked their shit,” made dreams a reality, and transcended the confines of time, reminding us that dreams can be powerful forces for change.
First, I set out to listen to Mahalia Jackson’s album on vinyl, leading to Dr. Reverend Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have A Dream” speech (2). (Mahalia encouraged him to do it.) While listening to Martin’s passionate speech, I realized dreams are real. Dr. King was also a political prisoner and set forth his dream to America in August, and his dream was a call to action. Dreams respond to something and operate as messages, warnings, and blessings to create and formulate new worlds and realities.
Dreaming is manifesting. It’s defining your vision. It’s daring to call out your desires with intention. It’s envisioning a thing so clearly that you already see it, feel it, and imagine living it. It’s imperative to dream, call, or see something that isn’t yet and not stagnate in current reality. Dr. King reminded me of how a dream could work and operate as motivation and encouragement for Justice, dignity, and freedom. The call to action for America to let freedom ring - Black People can live and prosper without unjust laws, limitations on education, housing, transportation, lodging, and police brutality. MLK’s call to action was during Black August and was a great example of Afrofuturism in practice.
Dreaming is a skill, a necessity for ensuring life in the future. Dreaming is a part of Afrofuturism, a term coined by Mark Dery. It communicates and describes how Black people see themselves, expand on new ideas, and shape a future of their own using creativity, intellectual thought, art, emotional intelligence, imagination, and critical theories to inform, influence, and ensure Black livelihood. Black culture, skills, values, and beliefs shape the present and future, ensuring their enduring presence across generations—Afrofuturists use dreaming to inform the future since it requires imagination. Imagination is the faculty or action of forming new ideas, images, or concepts of external objects not present to the senses, and dreams are the space to do it. Dreamspaces are magical places where imagination, critical thought, and creativity are limitless, and believing and working toward a future is necessary as Afrofuturists.
Dreams don’t have time limits. Time is a social construct, which implies that since it is a human-made concept used to describe life and our relationship with other living beings, we can redefine its meaning, purpose, and perception. In Afrofuturism, time is now, the past and future simultaneously. Essentially Afrofuturism allows you to not give a fuck about time since it’s what you make it. Time is not linear in Afrofuturism. Afrofuturist Isiah Lavender III encourages us to think of time as a continuum, where even though the violence of our past contributes to the violence of our present, we can plug into the enduring hope of our ancestors to construct our future actively (3). When you stop dreaming, Langston Hughes’ wise words about a dream get forgotten. What he say?
“Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly.
Hold fast to dreams
For when dreams go
Life is a barren field
Frozen with snow (4).”
I use the saying, “no dreams deferred,” because a dream becoming a reality has no time limit on when it happens; as long as you keep dreaming, it will happen. It’s essential to dream because dreams hold power. Dreaming allows for one’s imagination to become a reality. Through dreaming, one can visualize how to solve problems and uncover new pleasures in life. Dreams inspire and motivate you to try something different to live differently. Dreaming is a skill we should use to determine a thriving life for Black people in the future.
Dream as Dr. King did. Dream big! I’m talkin' about dreaming another everything, anything, into reality.
