A Dream Deferred

I still remember in first grade, that time of the year when we were asked to pick a famous figure to do a report on. This wasn't for Black History Month; just a regular requirement. There was the usual list of names to choose from, but this time, I saw a name on the list I'd never seen before and it was a name that called to me: Langston Hughes.

I'd never heard of the poet before, but at the age of seven, education was still focused just on learning how words were sounded out, not on the merits of literary greats. I wasn't even that concerned by the fact that no women made the list. Back then, there was no internet, and books were still lacking that were available to shine some light, more than a flimsy paragraph or two, on them.

It wasn't even a surprise that Langston Hughes was a black man. This soft-spoken boy raised by his grandmother was a great lover of escaping into books, a sentiment that married me to the project, if not the man, more. I didn't just look for the biography, I followed the work-- the famous, the obscure.

While it was clear that his life, the circumstances of birth, were an obstacle somehow, I saw a man that never minded them. Or rather, if he did, his circumstances didn't dull his desire to speak through thoughtfully chosen words. I've seen it in many people since-- Judge Judy Scheinlin, for one. When people speak about them in terms of their gender or race, they are quick to shut it down, to remind people even that it was a selfish desire to nurture their talent, that how they succeeded and consequently became role models was out of their hands.

Without knowing that Langston Hughes was a name engraved in my inspirational log, my nephew Marcus chose him for his own Black History Month project in first grade. I felt the welling of tears, the warm spread of a nostalgic grin, and the eagerness to revive anew what I'd learned and share it with my nephew.

History, literature, art-- it belongs to all of us. In the back of my mind, I wonder if my name will sneak in there. Yet, under it all, is just the spark of a little girl who wouldn't dare to give up a dream because anyone else believed the shoes were too big to fill.

I have big feet and bigger dreams and I intend to leave a few footprints behind.