Four Freedoms Award

President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, painted by Frank O. Salisbury, 1947

The Four Freedoms Award is an annual award. It is presented to people and organisations who have "demonstrated" the principles of the Four Freedoms of US-president Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

President Roosevelt described his Four Freedoms during the State of the Union speech of 6 January 1941. In his speech he said that if democracy is to survive and flourish, people everywhere in the world are entitled to four human rights: freedom of speech and expression, freedom of worship, freedom from want and freedom from fear.

The awards have been given since 1982, alternately in the United States and the Netherlands. In odd years the awards are given to Americans by the Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute in Hyde Park, New York. In some years special awards have been given.

In even years the award ceremony is held in Middelburg and honours non-Americans. The choice for Middelburg was motivated by the suspected descendance of the family Roosevelt from the village of Oud-Vossemeer in the province of Zeeland.

Four Freedoms Speech

The speech delivered by President Roosevelt incorporated the following

In the future days, which we seek to make secure, we look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms.

  1. The first is freedom of speech and expression — everywhere in the world.
  2. The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way — everywhere in the world.
  3. 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.
  4. 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.

That is no vision of a distant millennium. It is a definite basis for a kind of world attainable in our own time and generation. That kind of world is the very antithesis of the so-called new order of tyranny which the dictators seek to create with the crash of a bomb.—Franklin D. Roosevelt, excerpted from the State of the Union Address to the Congress, January 6, 1941

Laureates

Freedom Medal

 
One of the medals
Year Middelburg Year Hyde Park
1982 H.R.H. Princess Juliana of the Netherlands 1983 W. Averell Harriman
1984 Harold Macmillan 1985 Claude Pepper
1986 Alessandro Pertini 1987 Thomas P. O'Neill, Jr
1988 Helmut Schmidt 1989 William J. Brennan, Jr.
1990 Václav Havel and Jacques Delors 1991 Thurgood Marshall
1992 Javier Pérez de Cuéllar 1993 Cyrus Vance
1994 Dalai Lama 1995 President Jimmy Carter
1996 Juan Carlos of Spain 1997 Katharine Meyer Graham
1998 Mary Robinson 1999 Edward M. Kennedy
2000 Martti Ahtisaari 2001 W.W. II veterans as represented by
2002 Nelson Mandela 2003 George J. Mitchell
2004 Kofi Annan 2005 Bill Clinton
2006 Mohamed ElBaradei 2007 Carl Levin and Richard Lugar
2008 Richard von Weizsäcker 2009 Hillary Rodham Clinton
2010 European Court of Human Rights 2011 Russ Feingold
2012 Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva 2013 Wendell Berry

Freedom of Speech

 
Freedom of Speech, a painting of Norman Rockwell of 1943

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

— 
Year Middelburg Year Hyde Park
1982 Max van der Stoel 1983 Joseph L. Rauh, Jr.
1984 Amnesty International 1985 Dr. Kenneth B. Clark
1986 El País 1987 Herbert Block
1988 Ellen Johnson Sirleaf 1989 Walter Cronkite
1990 No Award 1991 James Reston
1992 Mstislav Rostropovich 1993 Arthur Miller
1994 Marion Dönhoff 1995 Mary McGrory
1996 John Hume 1997 Sidney R. Yates
1998 CNN 1999 John Lewis
2000 Bronisław Geremek 2001 The New York Times and the Ochs/Sulzberger Family
2002 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty 2003 Studs Terkel
2004 Lennart Meri 2005 Tom Brokaw
2006 Carlos Fuentes 2007 Bill Moyers
2008 Lakhdar Brahimi 2009 Anthony Romero
2010 Novaya Gazeta 2011 Michael J. Copps
2012 Al Jazeera 2013 ...

Freedom of Worship

 
Freedom of Worship, a painting of Norman Rockwell of 1943

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

— 
Year Middelburg Year Hyde Park
1982 Willem A. Visser 't Hooft 1983 Coretta Scott King
1984 Werner Leich and Christiann F. Beyers Naudé 1985 Elie Wiesel
1986 Bernardus Alfrink 1987 Leon Sullivan
1988 Teddy Kollek 1989 Raphael Lemkin (posthumously) and Hyman Bookbinder
1990 László Tőkés 1991 Paul Moore, Jr.
1992 Terry Waite 1993 Theodore M. Hesburgh, CSC
1994 Gerhart M Riegner 1995 Andrew Young
1996 Lord Runcie 1997 William H. Gray
1998 Desmond Tutu 1999 Corinne C. Boggs
2000 Cicely Saunders 2001 Johnnie Carr
2002 Nasr Abu Zayd 2003 Robert F. Drinan
2004 Sari Nusseibeh 2005 Cornel West
2006 Taizé Community 2007 Peter J. Gomes
2008 Karen Armstrong 2009 Eboo Patel
2010 Asma Jahangir 2011 Rev. Barry W. Lynn
2012 Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople 2013 ...

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.

— 
Year Middelburg Year Hyde Park
1982 H. Johannes Witteveen 1983 Robert S. McNamara
1984 Liv Ullmann 1985 Dr. John Kenneth Galbraith
1986 F. Bradford Morse 1987 Mary Lasker
1988 Dr. Halfdan T. Mahler 1989 Dr. Dorothy I. Height
1990 Emile van Lennep 1991 Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward
1992 Jan Tinbergen 1993 Eunice Kennedy Shriver and Sargent Shriver
1994 Sadako Ogata 1995 Lane Kirkland
1996 Médecins Sans Frontières 1997 Mark O. Hatfield
1998 Stéphane Hessel 1999 George S. McGovern
2000 M. S. Swaminathan 2001 March of Dimes
2002 Gro Harlem Brundtland 2003 Dolores Huerta
2004 Marguerite Barankitse 2005 Marsha J. Evans
2006 Muhammad Yunus, Grameen Bank 2007 Barbara Ehrenreich
2008 Jan Egeland 2009 Vicki Escarra
2010 Maurice Strong 2011 Jacqueline Novogratz
2012 Ela Bhatt 2013 ...

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.

— 
Year Middelburg Year Hyde Park
1982 J. Herman van Roijen 1983 Jacob K. Javits
1984 Brian Urquhart 1985 Dr. Isidor Rabi
1986 Olof Palme (posthumously) 1987 Dr. George Kennan
1988 Dr. Armand Hammer 1989 J. William Fulbright
1990 Simon Wiesenthal 1991 Mike Mansfield
1992 Lord Carrington 1993 George Ball
1994 Zdravko Grebo 1995 Elliot Richardson
1996 Shimon Peres 1997 Daniel K. Inouye
1998 Craig Kielburger 1999 Robert O. Muller
2000 Louise Arbour 2001 W.W. II veterans as represented by
2002 Ernesto Zedillo 2003 Robert C. Byrd
2004 Max Kohnstamm 2005 Lee H. Hamilton and Thomas Kean
2006 Aung San Suu Kyi 2007 Brent Scowcroft
2008 Willemijn Verloop - War Child 2009 Pasquale J. D'Amuro
2010 Gareth Evans 2011 Bryan A. Stevenson
2012 Hussain al-Shahristani 2013 ...

Special presentations

1984 Simone Veil (Centenial Award) 2002 William vanden Heuvel 2005 BBC World Service
1990 Mikhail Gorbachev 2003 Arthur Schlesinger Jr. 2005 Mary Soames
1995 Jonas Salk 2004 Anton Rupert 2006 Mike Wallace
1995 Ruud Lubbers 2004 Bob Dole 2008 Forrest Church

References

  • Roosevelt Institute, List of laureates Archived 2015-03-25 at the Wayback Machine
  • TV documentary on the Four Freedoms Award at YouTube. NOS (2008)
  • Oosthoek, A.L. (2010) Roosevelt in Middelburg: the four freedoms awards 1982-2008, ISBN 978-9079875214
  • American Rethoric, Four Freedoms Speech of Roosevelt

Other websites