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 Park1982  H.R.H. Princess Juliana of the Netherlands  1983  W. Averell Harriman1984  Harold Macmillan  1985  Claude Pepper1986  Alessandro Pertini  1987  Thomas P. O'Neill, Jr1988  Helmut Schmidt  1989  William J. Brennan, Jr.1990  Václav Havel and Jacques Delors  1991  Thurgood Marshall1992  Javier Pérez de Cuéllar  1993  Cyrus Vance1994  Dalai Lama  1995  President Jimmy Carter1996  Juan Carlos of Spain  1997  Katharine Meyer Graham1998  Mary Robinson  1999  Edward M. Kennedy2000  Martti Ahtisaari  2001  W.W. II veterans as represented by
 Richard Winters (U.S. Army)
 Robert Eugene Bush (U.S. Navy)
 William T. Ketcham (U.S. Marine Corps)
 Lee A. Archer, Jr. (U.S. Air Force)
 Ellen Buckley (U.S. Army Nurse Corps)2002  Nelson Mandela  2003  George J. Mitchell2004  Kofi Annan  2005  Bill Clinton2006  Mohamed ElBaradei  2007  Carl Levin and Richard Lugar2008  Richard von Weizsäcker  2009  Hillary Rodham Clinton2010  European Court of Human Rights  2011  Russ Feingold2012  Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva  2013  Wendell Berry


Freedom of Speech

 Year  Middelburg  Year  Hyde Park1982  Max van der Stoel  1983  Joseph L. Rauh, Jr.1984  Amnesty International  1985  Dr. Kenneth B. Clark1986  El País  1987  Herbert Block1988  Ellen Johnson Sirleaf  1989  Walter Cronkite1990  No Award  1991  James Reston1992  Mstislav Rostropovich  1993  Arthur Miller1994  Marion Dönhoff  1995  Mary McGrory1996  John Hume  1997  Sidney R. Yates1998  CNN  1999  John Lewis2000  Bronisław Geremek  2001  The New York Times and the Ochs/Sulzberger Family2002  Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty  2003  Studs Terkel2004  Lennart Meri  2005  Tom Brokaw2006  Carlos Fuentes  2007  Bill Moyers2008  Lakhdar Brahimi  2009  Anthony Romero2010  Novaya Gazeta  2011  Michael J. Copps2012  Al Jazeera  2013  ...


Freedom of Worship

 Year  Middelburg  Year  Hyde Park1982  Willem A. Visser 't Hooft  1983  Coretta Scott King1984  Werner Leich and Christiann F. Beyers Naudé  1985  Elie Wiesel1986  Bernardus Alfrink  1987  Leon Sullivan1988  Teddy Kollek  1989  Raphael Lemkin (posthumously) and Hyman Bookbinder1990  László Tőkés  1991  Paul Moore, Jr.1992  Terry Waite  1993  Theodore M. Hesburgh, CSC1994  Gerhart M Riegner  1995  Andrew Young1996  Lord Runcie  1997  William H. Gray1998  Desmond Tutu  1999  Corinne C. Boggs2000  Cicely Saunders  2001  Johnnie Carr2002  Nasr Abu Zayd  2003  Robert F. Drinan2004  Sari Nusseibeh  2005  Cornel West2006  Taizé Community  2007  Peter J. Gomes2008  Karen Armstrong  2009  Eboo Patel2010  Asma Jahangir  2011  Rev. Barry W. Lynn2012  Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople  2013  ...


Freedom from Want

 Year  Middelburg  Year  Hyde Park1982  H. Johannes Witteveen  1983  Robert S. McNamara1984  Liv Ullmann  1985  Dr. John Kenneth Galbraith1986  F. Bradford Morse  1987  Mary Lasker1988  Dr. Halfdan T. Mahler  1989  Dr. Dorothy I. Height1990  Emile van Lennep  1991  Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward1992  Jan Tinbergen  1993  Eunice Kennedy Shriver and Sargent Shriver1994  Sadako Ogata  1995  Lane Kirkland1996  Médecins Sans Frontières  1997  Mark O. Hatfield1998  Stéphane Hessel  1999  George S. McGovern2000  M. S. Swaminathan  2001  March of Dimes2002  Gro Harlem Brundtland  2003  Dolores Huerta2004  Marguerite Barankitse  2005  Marsha J. Evans2006  Muhammad Yunus, Grameen Bank  2007  Barbara Ehrenreich2008  Jan Egeland  2009  Vicki Escarra2010  Maurice Strong  2011  Jacqueline Novogratz2012  Ela Bhatt  2013  ...


Freedom from Fear

 Year  Middelburg  Year  Hyde Park1982  J. Herman van Roijen  1983  Jacob K. Javits1984  Brian Urquhart  1985  Dr. Isidor Rabi1986  Olof Palme (posthumously)  1987  Dr. George Kennan1988  Dr. Armand Hammer  1989  J. William Fulbright1990  Simon Wiesenthal  1991  Mike Mansfield1992  Lord Carrington  1993  George Ball1994  Zdravko Grebo  1995  Elliot Richardson1996  Shimon Peres  1997  Daniel K. Inouye1998  Craig Kielburger  1999  Robert O. Muller2000  Louise Arbour  2001  W.W. II veterans as represented by
 Richard Winters (U.S. Army)
 Robert E. Bush (U.S. Navy)
 William T. Ketcham (U.S. Marine Corps)
 Lee A. Archer, Jr. (U.S. Air Force)
 Ellen Buckley (U.S. Army Nurse Corps)2002  Ernesto Zedillo  2003  Robert C. Byrd2004  Max Kohnstamm  2005  Lee H. Hamilton and Thomas Kean2006  Aung San Suu Kyi  2007  Brent Scowcroft2008  Willemijn Verloop - War Child  2009  Pasquale J. D'Amuro2010  Gareth Evans  2011  Bryan A. Stevenson2012  Hussain al-Shahristani  2013  ...


Special presentations
1984  Simone Veil (Centenial Award)2002  William vanden Heuvel2005  BBC World Service1990  Mikhail Gorbachev2003  Arthur Schlesinger Jr.2005  Mary Soames1995  Jonas Salk2004  Anton Rupert2006  Mike Wallace1995  Ruud Lubbers2004  Bob Dole2008  Forrest Church


 References 

Roosevelt Institute, List of laureates 
 . NOS (2008)
Oosthoek, A.L. (2010) Roosevelt in Middelburg: the four freedoms awards 1982-2008, 
American Rethoric, Four Freedoms Speech of Roosevelt

Other websites
 Roosevelt Institute, Hyde Park, New York
 Roosevelt Stichting, Middelburg, Netherlands

Category:American awards
Category:Dutch culture
Category:Human rights
Category:New York (state)
Category:Zeeland
Category:1982 establishments in the United States
Category:1980s establishments in the Netherlands