Four Freedoms Award

The Four Freedoms Award is an annual award presented to "those men and women whose achievements have demonstrated a commitment to those principles which US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt proclaimed in his Four Freedoms speech to the United States Congress on January 6, 1941, as essential to democracy: "freedom of speech and expression, freedom of worship, freedom from want, freedom from fear". The annual award is handed out in alternate years in New York City by the Roosevelt Institute to Americans and in Middelburg, Netherlands, by the Roosevelt Stichting to non-Americans.

History

The awards were first presented in 1982 on the centennial of President Roosevelt's birth as well as the bicentennial of diplomatic relations between the United States and the Netherlands. The awards were founded to celebrate the Four Freedoms espoused by President Roosevelt in his speech:

1. Freedom of speech
2. Freedom of worship
3. Freedom from want
4. Freedom from fear

For each of the four freedoms an award was instituted, as well as a special Freedom medal. In 1990, 1995, 2003 and 2004 there were also special awards.

In odd years the awards are presented to American citizens or institutions by the Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute in New York City, though in the past the American awards were given in Hyde Park, New York. In even years the award ceremony is held in Middelburg and honors non-Americans. The choice of Middelburg was motivated by the suspected descendance of the family Roosevelt from Oud-Vossemeer in the municipality Tholen.

Laureates

Freedom Medal

Freedom of Speech

The first is freedom of speech and expression — everywhere in the world.

Freedom of Worship

The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way — everywhere in the world.

Freedom from Want

The third is freedom from want — which, translated into world terms, means economic understandings which will secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants — everywhere in the world.

Freedom from Fear

The fourth is freedom from fear — which, translated into world terms, means a world-wide reduction of armaments to such a point and in such a thorough fashion that no nation will be in a position to commit an act of physical aggression against any neighbor — anywhere in the world.

Special presentations

See also

• Four Freedoms Monument
• William O. Douglas Prize
• List of religion-related awards

References

• Roosevelt Institute, List of laureates
• NOS (2008) TV documentary on the Four Freedoms Award
• Oosthoek, A.L. (2010) Roosevelt in Middelburg: the four freedoms awards 1982-2008, ISBN 978-9079875214
• American Rhetoric, Four Freedoms Speech of Roosevelt

External links

• Four Freedoms Monument
• Roosevelt Institute website

1. Four Freedoms
2. Four Freedoms Monument
3. Four Freedoms (disambiguation)
4. Freedom from fear
5. Terry Waite
6. Roosevelt Institute
7. Religions for Peace
8. Roosevelt Institute for American Studies
9. Dmitry Muratov
10. Denis Mukwege
11. Novaya Gazeta
12. List of intellectual freedom awards
13. CNN
14. James Roosevelt I
15. Robert Eugene Bush
16. European single market
17. Mary Lasker
18. Karen Armstrong
19. Arthur Miller
20. Asma Jahangir