Imani Perry is one of the most captivating speakers I’ve ever heard.
I discovered that when I asked her a question, posed in 1951, by Langston Hughes, in his poem Harlem:
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?
Her eye-opening answer comes early in our conversation.
We also discuss:
What Perry discovered about Lorraine Hansberry, the first black playwright to have a work appear on Broadway; Perry’s book “Breathe: A Letter to My Sons” – in which she balances “the talk” with instilling the desire to fly; the influence of her grandmother, Nita Garner Perry, who worked as a domestic and sent all twelve of her children to college; the powerful educational legacy of Pearl High in Nashville; what her adoptive Jewish father taught her about Black history and culture; nd her “dangerously high threshold for pain,” which she has discovered living with a “collection” of sometimes debilitating autoimmune diseases.
Perry is a Professor of African American Studies at Harvard, where she received her law degree and a Ph.D. in American Studies, and the author of eight books, including the winner of a National Book Award.
Our conversation took place at the Nantucket Book Festival in June of 2023.