Four Freedoms Award
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.
- The first is freedom of speech and expression — everywhere in the world.
- The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way — everywhere in the world.
- 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.
- 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
| 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 |
 H.R.H. Juliana 1982 |
 E. Kennedy 1999 |
.jpg.webp) N. Mandela 2002 |
 H. Clinton 2009 |
Freedom of Speech
The first is freedom of speech and expression — everywhere in the world.
— Roosevelt, January 6, 1941
| 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 | ... |
 M. vd Stoel 1982 |
 J. Lewis 1999 |
Freedom of Worship
The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way — everywhere in the world.
— Roosevelt, January 6, 1941
| 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 | ... |
 C. King 1983 |
 E. Wiesel 1985 |
 B. Alfrink 1986 |
 Bartholomew I 2012 |
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.
— Roosevelt, January 6, 1941
| 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 | ... |
 R. McNamara 1983 |
 M. Lasker 1987 |
 M. Yunus 2006 |
 E. Bhatt 2012 |
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.
— Roosevelt, January 6, 1941
| 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 | ... |
 W. Fulbright 1989 |
 B. Muller 1999 |
 L. Arbour 2000 |
 Aung San S. 2006 |
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 |
 M. Gorbachev 1990 |
 R. Lubbers 1995 |
 M. Soames 2005 |
 F. Church 2008 |
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
- Roosevelt Institute, Hyde Park, New York
- Roosevelt Stichting, Middelburg, Netherlands