Dream Deferred was filmed and produced by Harvey Richards for Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC called "Snick") for its southern voter registration drive in the spring of 1964, just before the famous 1964 Mississippi Freedom Summer. It is the second film Richards made in collaboration with Amzie Moore, a local Mississippi civil rights leader who appears in the film speaking about conditions of life in the Mississippi delta. The film also contains interviews with other civil rights activists, voter registrants, and features Fannie Lou Hamer campaigning for election in the 'freedom votes' that were held before African Americans won the legal right to vote in 1965. Fannie Lou Hamer declared "I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired."