Four Freedoms Award

set of annual awards presented in alternation by the Roosevelt Institute and the Roosevelt Foundation From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Four Freedoms Award
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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.

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

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.

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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

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Laureates

Freedom Medal

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One of the medals
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H.R.H. Juliana
1982
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E. Kennedy
1999
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N. Mandela
2002
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H. Clinton
2009

Freedom of Speech

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Freedom of Speech, a painting of Norman Rockwell of 1943

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

Roosevelt, January 6, 1941
More information Year, Middelburg ...
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M. vd Stoel
1982
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J. Lewis
1999

Freedom of Worship

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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.

Roosevelt, January 6, 1941
More information Year, Middelburg ...
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C. King
1983
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E. Wiesel
1985
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B. Alfrink
1986
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Bartholomew I
2012

Freedom from Want

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Freedom from Want of painter Norman Rockwell of 1943

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
More information Year, Middelburg ...
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R. McNamara
1983
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M. Lasker
1987
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M. Yunus
2006
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E. Bhatt
2012

Freedom from Fear

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Freedom from Fear of Norman Rockwell of 1943

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
More information Year, Middelburg ...
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W. Fulbright
1989
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B. Muller
1999
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L. Arbour
2000
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Aung San S.
2006

Special presentations

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

  • Roosevelt Institute, List of laureates Archived 2015-03-25 at the Wayback Machine
  • TV documentary on the Four Freedoms Award on 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

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