Ryan Herring, former Sojourners intern and editor-in-chief of the The Ghetto Monk, traveled to Ferguson, Mo., to participate in the protests and events “eerily similar to ones decades ago during the civil rights movement.” In Langston Hughes’ poem “Harlem,” Hughes asks what happens to a dream deferred.
Decades later, Herring finds himself echoing Hughes’ question in ‘Hands Up! Don’t Shoot!’ (Sojourners, November 2014). Will the dream for equal rights “dry up like a raisin in the sun,” like Michael Brown’s body “left to bake in the sweltering heat for nearly hours after he was executed?” Or will the deferred dream “explode?” In other words, will the laments and protests of Ferguson grow into a larger movement for racial equality?
Watch this video to see photos from Ferguson and to listen to Herring reading “Harlem” in the background.
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