It is said that Martin Luther King's "Dream" speech was inspired, at least in part, by reading Langston Hughes' poem "Dream Deferred." Here is Hughes' "Harlem" from his montage of "Dream Deferred" (published 1951, found in his Collected Poems) and then MLK's full speech (1963). As you can see by the text, Hughes is not only speaking of his day, but also ours. And the pairing together the fears of a dream deferred to the proclamation of a dream hoped and longed for is a powerful thing.
Harlem
by Langston Hughes
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?