Four Freedoms Award facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Four Freedoms Award
President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, painted by Francis Owen Salisbury, 1947
Country	United States

The Four Freedoms Award is an annual award presented to "those men and women whose achievements have demonstrated a commitment to those principles which US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt proclaimed in his Four Freedoms speech to the United States Congress on January 6, 1941, as essential to democracy: "freedom of speech and expression, freedom of worship, freedom from want, freedom from fear". The annual award is handed out in alternate years in New York City by the Roosevelt Institute to Americans and in Middelburg, Netherlands, by the Roosevelt Stichting to non-Americans.

History

The awards were first presented in 1982 on the centennial of President Roosevelt's birth as well as the bicentennial of diplomatic relations between the United States and the Netherlands. The awards were founded to celebrate the Four Freedoms espoused by President Roosevelt in his speech:

1. Freedom of speech
2. Freedom of worship
3. Freedom from want
4. Freedom from fear

For each of the four freedoms an award was instituted, as well as a special Freedom medal. In 1990, 1995, 2003 and 2004 there were also special awards.

In odd years the awards are presented to American citizens or institutions by the Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute in New York City, though in the past the American awards were given in Hyde Park, New York. In even years the award ceremony is held in Middelburg and honors non-Americans. The choice of Middelburg was motivated by the suspected descendance of the family Roosevelt from Oud-Vossemeer in the municipality Tholen.

Laureates

Freedom Medal

One of the medals

Year	Middelburg	Photo	Year	Hyde Park	Photo
1982	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	Jimmy Carter
1996	Juan Carlos I 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. Navy 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 Clinton
2010	European Court of Human Rights		2011	Russ Feingold
2012	Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva		2013	Wendell Berry
2014	Red Cross		2015	Ruth Bader Ginsburg
2016	Angela Merkel		2017	Harry Belafonte
2018	Christiana Figueres as representative of the Paris Climate Agreement		2019	Lonnie Bunch
2020	United Nations		2021	Fred Korematsu
2022	Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya		2023	Nancy Pelosi
2024	Save Ukraine		2025

Freedom of Speech

Dutch politician Max van der Stoel receives the Freedom of Speech award, 16 October 1982

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

—Roosevelt, January 6, 1941

M. vd Stoel 1982

J. Lewis 1999

Dmitry Muratov on behalf of Novaya Gazeta 2010

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

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

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

W. Fulbright 1989

B. Muller 1999

L. Arbour 2000

Aung San S. 2006

Special presentations

Simone Veil 1984

M. Gorbachev 1990

R. Lubbers 1995

M. Soames 2005

F. Church 2008

See also

• Four Freedoms Monument
• William O. Douglas Prize
• List of religion-related awards