Harlem

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

The passing of time is one of life's many mysteries. Seconds, minutes, hours, days pass, and regardless of how organized one is, all goals are never achieved. Aspirations fade away and once bright tomorrows are filed by year in a cabinet of yesterdays.

Sixty-one years ago, Martin Luther King Jr. was born in the United States' deep south, then a pit of segregation, discrimination and inequality, now an integrated, less discriminating area. That little black boy matured into the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., one of the most renowned of all black men and one of the most influential people of this century. Most importantly, King was one of the nation's premiere dreamers.

In 1963, King envisioned a nation where equality reigned supreme and hundreds of thousands of Americans closed their eyes and dreamed with him.

In the '50s and '60s, he aroused a near revolutionary nation to examine itself. As black men, women and children were beaten, burned and jailed, King continued to lead a nonviolent movement toward equality. He shared his dream and diligently labored to make it a reality.

On April 4, 1968, shots rang through the air, snuffing out this self- titled drum major for justice. The nation slipped from a near realistic dream into a horrifying nightmare.

As I ponder the significance this one man had on a nation, my mind drifts out the window of Pattee Library to a hypothetical world.

I envision a world where Martin Luther King Jr. came home from delivering his speech that April evening and simply went to his bedroom in the Lorraine Motel. He awakened the next morning and began his daily routine.

In my daydream, King still helped to organize the Montgomery County bus boycott in '55 and '56, discouraging people from using that county's mass transit system and encouraging them to walk extra miles to work and, hopefully, to freedom. And King still preached his sermons about love from pulpits in the South.

Time passes in my dream, and finally it is 1990. Women's salaries and rate of job promotions are equal to men's and the unemployment rate for everyone, but specifically blacks, has reached an all-time low.

In political elections, voters are not concerned with a candidate's race, but with electing officials who will most effectively do the job. Because of this ideology, half of the elected officials are black, and more women are in politics than ever before.

My picture is complete and ever so slowly I drift back to 1990, pondering the differences between my daydream and the real world outside the window in Pattee Library.

A gap exists between my vision and the real world. I account for this gap as King's dream deferred.

In my world, 17.9 percent of black families earn incomes less than $5,000 a year. The median income of black families hovers around $18,000. These families, according to the March 13, 1989 issue of Time, have enjoyed a salary increase of less than $1,000 between 1967 and '87.

Those blacks who do enjoy significant economic gains have not escaped prejudice, and most realize they are still judged by their skin color.

One black married professional has been offered jobs as a maid when doing her laundry in the laundry room of her luxury apartment building. Combined, the couple's income exceeds $200,000.

The first black U.S. governor was elected in 1989. His election was regarded as such a shock that a re-count was taken.

Other black U.S. elected officials are sparse. In a 1987 poll, a majority of non-Jackson supporters admitted that race was an issue to be considered when Jesse Jackson ran for the U.S. presidency.

"I have a dream my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."

This was King's dream in 1963. Twenty-six years later, it is still a dream for many. Progress is a slow process, but I fear that the process may wind down to a halt.

Time plays tricky games with our minds and seemingly important, even imperative ideas, dreams and aspirations are often delayed. Some never come true. King's dream is one that has been deferred for too long and must soon become a reality.