Hansen, Drew D. 1964(?)-

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HANSEN, Drew D. 1964(?)-

PERSONAL:

Born c. 1964, in Merrill, WI. Education: Harvard, A.B. (summa cum laude), 1995; Oxford University, B.A. (theology), 1997; Yale Law School, J.D., 2000.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Seattle, WA. Office—Susman Godfrey Attorneys at Law, Suite 3100, 1201 Third Ave., Seattle, WA 98101-3000. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

Called to the bar of Washington State, 2000; teaching assistant to Professor Drew S. Days, III; law clerk to Honorable Pierre N. Leval, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, 1999-2000; Susman Godfrey Attorneys at Law, Seattle, WA, currently associate attorney.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Rhodes Scholar, Oxford University, 1996-97; Judge William E. Miller Prize, 2000; named a "Rising Star," Washington Law and Politics, 2003, 2004; Colby Townsend Prize, 1999.

WRITINGS:

The Dream: Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Speech that Inspired a Nation, Ecco (New York, NY), 2003.

Contributor of articles to newspapers and professional journals, including USA Today, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Wayne Law Review, and Yale Law Journal. Former editor, Yale Law Journal.

SIDELIGHTS:

Drew D. Hansen is a graduate of theology from Oxford University and holds a doctorate of jurisprudence from Yale. A practicing lawyer in Seattle, Hansen explores the origins and legacy of the "I Have a Dream" speech by Martin Luther King, Jr., in his 2003 book, The Dream: Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Speech that Inspired a Nation. As Hansen noted in an article for USA Today, King's speech, delivered during the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, "is justly famous for its lyricism, its musical delivery and its unforgettable visions of an America free of racism." King's speech has become over the four decades since it was first enunciated, "one of America's sacred texts—the oratorical equivalent of the Declaration of Independence," according to Hansen.

It was the iconic quality of the speech that drew Hansen to it and ultimately led to publication of The Dream. Steve Neal, reviewing the book in the Chicago Sun-Times, felt that it "does much to explain why this speech was so important." In his book, Hansen first sets the scene for American race relations in the early 1960s. At the time King gave his speech, about two-thirds of the African-American population of the United States resided in the South, where segregationist laws still held sway. Thus, King directed his speech at finding equality for those people who were disenfranchised and forced to lead separate lives at schools and in other spheres of public life. Hansen goes on to provide a behind-the-scenes look at the preparation not only of King's speech, but also of the march itself with its spectacle of a quarter of a million people gathered in front of the Lincoln Memorial. King's speech was covered by all three major television networks and "sparked nothing less than the second American Revolution," according to Neal. Not a bad result for a speech that took only four days to write, as Hansen tells his readers.

Cameron McWhirter, writing in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, commented that Hansen "places the speech in historical context and shows how over time the speech was transformed to overshadow King the man." McWhirter also wrote that "Hansen argues persuasively" that many of King's later achievements in seeking equality in the North "have been largely forgotten." The book also found praise from Vernon Ford in a Booklist review, which concluded: "Readers interested in the moral issues tied to the civil rights struggle will enjoy Hansen's analysis." Similarly, a reviewer for Publishers Weekly commended The Dream as "serious, scholarly and engaged," and a critic for Kirkus Reviews dubbed Hansen's book a "studied anatomy of one bold moment of extemporaneous triumph."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Atlanta Journal-Constitution, August 3, 2003, Cameron McWhirter, review of The Dream: Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Speech that Inspired a Nation, p. E4.

Booklist, July, 2003, Vernon Ford, review of The Dream, pp. 1850-1851.

Chicago Sun-Times, August 27, 2004, Steve Neal, review of The Dream, p. 51.

Kirkus Reviews, May 1, 2003, review of The Dream, p. 657.

Library Journal, June 1, 2003, Thomas J. Davies, review of The Dream, p. 140.

New Republic, September 29, 2003, David J. Garrow, review of The Dream, p. 28.

Publishers Weekly, June 9, 2003, review of The Dream, p. 49.

USA Today, August 27, 2003, Drew D. Hansen, "King's Dreams for Demise of Racism, Poverty Continue Today," p. A11.