Wednesday marks the 50th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech. In January 2012 we published a story about state Rep. Drew Hansen’s treatment of the speech, which is on display in a book, The Dream: Martin Luther King Jr. and the Speech that Inspired a Nation, he wrote for the speech’s 40th anniversary.
This week Hansen gets to illustrate the speech’s significance again in a piece in The Globe and Mail, A Canadian national newspaper based in Toronto. The piece is an interactive exercise, allowing the reader to read King’s speech and click on highlighted segments that lead to context penned by Hansen.
Hansen highlights the speech’s focus on poverty, shows how King deviated from his prepared text and provides context for the realities related to the “I Have a Dream” portion of what is now King’s career-defining moment. The Globe and Mail piece is an instructive way to learn more about the speech and the era that surrounded it.
UPDATE: Hansen’s take on King’s speech has been all over the place this week. Today he has a column in the New York Times.
Hansen is referenced in a FoxNews piece and one in USA Today on former basketball coach George Raveling, who said he has the copy of King’s written speech. Hansen also has a column focusing on Bayard Rustin on Politico, and is referenced in another USA Today piece.
A shameless plug. Hope it helps book sales. Current MLK 50-year anniversary is long on anger, demands, political agitprop, and not much on hope. Perhaps DH can give Sharpton and Jackson such tutoring.
James Olsen says: “…long on anger, demands, political agitprop, and not much on hope.”
It sounds like Mr. Olsen is describing one of his political campaigns. Especially the part about “not much hope”.
Jim keeps hoping to get elected…his dream of course is to rule over all in Kitsap and our district with the iron tight fist he thinks we “liberal Louses” require. Thank heavens it is merely a dream and never goes fulfilled…because otherwise we’d all be living a Tea Party agenda nightmare in Kitsap County!
Jim, Just think. Had you written a book of such value, had gotten a real education and helped out in the commnunity, county, and state, had been liked and gone on to be elected to public office and actually done some good, maybe someone would write a flattering story about you. Better luck in your next life.
Thanks Steve , enjoyed clicking on the interactive parts which shared some extra content from a historical perspective . For example when Newsweek reported on the speech they deleted the part where King spoke about the racists in Alabama and called out their Governor .
Shows how different we were then in the media .