The great American civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.'s most famous speech, "I Have a Dream," (1963) looks forward to a time when all races can participate fully in the "American dream."

In his poem "Harlem" (1951), Hughes asks his famous question: "What happens to a dream deferred?" referring to the fact that African Americans' hopes for political and economic freedom were not able to be realized because of racist attitudes.

The Harlem Renaissance: Hub of African- American Culture, 1920-1930 (1996), by Steven Watson, traces the influential African-American cultural movement, of which Hughes was a key figure, that changed the way black intellectuals and artists thought about themselves.

Children of the Dream: Our Own Stories of Growing Up Black in America (2000), edited by Laurel Holliday, presents the stories of thirtyeight African Americans who explain what it is like to grow up...