What happens to a dream deferred?

“Digital Harlem” documents the hustle and bustle of the neighborhood of Harlem between the years of 1915 and 1930, as a part of a collaborative project by historians at the University of Sydney. The main focus of the project is to capture the lives of “ordinary” African Americans living in Harlem, rather than the majority of studies on Harlem at this time that focus on the “unordinary,” black artists and the middle class. Ordinary life is captured through an interactive map on the website. The site allows users to search by events, people, and places through a vast record of information collected through legal records, newspapers, and archives. I noticed at first, when searching the database, how the majority of the events documented are crimes, which prompted me to figure out why this was the case. By searching through the website even further, I found out that Harlem at this time had such high crime rates because many citizens in the neighborhood struggled with poverty and desperation. This reminded me of a Langston Hughes poem I have read before titled “Harlem” (http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/175884) which addresses the limitation of the American Dream concerning African Americans. Like “Digital Harlem,” which avoids the common, positive study on the art and success that came out of Harlem at the time, this poem disregards the success of many African Americans and focuses on the issues during this time. This unusual perspective gives the reader/user much more to think about since it is not generally focused on in society. By looking at the problems at this time, it helps us understand and acknowledges the achievements at this time.