Last Saturday, October 5th, the Four Freedoms Awards were presented to five individuals and organizations whose achievements have demonstrated the principles which President Franklin Delano Roosevelt proclaimed in his historic speech to US Congress on January 6, 1941, as essential to democracy: freedom of speech and expression, freedom of worship, freedom from want, freedom from fear.
The laureates were The Boston Globe (Freedom of Speech and Expression), Krista Tippet (Freedom of Worship), Franklin Thomas (Freedom from Want), Sandy Hook Promise (Freedom from Fear), and Lonnie Bunch (Freedom Medal, which encompasses all four freedoms). You will find a short description of their impressive work here in the program of the event.
The ceremony took place at the FDR Presidential Library in Hyde Park, New York. It was attended by UCR students Jedidja van Boven, Claire Dépit, and Katariina Lampi, who traveled with a generous grant from North Sea Port. Each of them will engage in research into the Four Freedoms legacy by comparing the ceremonies, its aims, character, and history in the USA (uneven years) and in Middelburg (even years).