Authors & Essays

When a federal court vacated the U.S.

As the writer Zora Neale Hurston eloquently observed, “There are years that ask questions, and there are years that answer.”

Nineteen sixty-five was one of those years that answered. And 2026 is shaping up to be its heir.

As our nation approaches its 250th anniversary, the question posed in the 2026 State of Black America®, Is the American Dream Dead?, is not theoretical.

For Black people in the United States, the American Dream has often remained elusive. The promise of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” has, throughout much of the nation’s history, functioned more as an aspiration than a lived reality.

The False Promise of the American Dream My grandfather James Thomas Scott was born on December 24, 1920.