"Let America Be the Dream the Dreamers Dreamed"

We at Vision Quilt are deeply concerned by the recent emboldening of white nationalism, neo-Nazis, the Ku Klux Klan, and other hate groups in the United States. In the wake of Charlottesville, awareness of such extremism has been a topic of national conversation, but racial violence has long played a shameful yet significant role in U.S. history.

Our country was born from a vision of freedom and equality for all, but this vision has fallen short of its promise for too many people. This vision stops short amidst the country’s legacies of slavery, displacement and genocide of native peoples, years of hostility toward a host of ethnic, religious, and migrant communities, the ever growing disparity between the prosperous and the poor, and more. As the poet Langston Hughes wrote, “America never was America to me.”

Yet Hughes would not be defeated. He wrote to call forth this great vision of a better world: "Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed— /Let it be that great strong land of love.”

We must work to ensure that this 21st century offers a legacy different from our past. Like the message found in many Vision Quilt panels, we must summon the power of love. We must seek guidance from our hearts, heal our personal and cultural wounds, and create the great nation of unity, acceptance, and love for all.

Panel by Lisa Mullis

Panel by Malia Reed

Panel by Micah Garcia