Four Freedoms

Welcome to the Four Freedoms Awards website

If civilization is to survive, we must cultivate the science of human relationships - the ability of all peoples, of all kinds, to live together, in the same world at peace.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

 

You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You must do the thing which you think you cannot do.

Eleanor Roosevelt

 

On January 6, 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, proclaimed in his State of the Union 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.

 

In order to keep the legacy of FDR alive, the Roosevelt Institute honors outstanding citizens who have demonstrated a lifelong commitment to these ideals every year. The impressive ceremonies that mark the awarding of the Four Freedoms medals are held alternately in Hyde Park, New York and Middelburg, the Netherlands, where the Roosevelt Stichting, a private foundation, is responsible for organising the ceremony in the even-numbered years.