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 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.

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 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. 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

N. Mandela 2002

H. Clinton 2009

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.

— 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

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

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

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

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

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

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 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. 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 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

Other websites

• Roosevelt Institute, Hyde Park, New York
• Roosevelt Stichting, Middelburg, Netherlands