Dean’s Professor of Spirituality, Ethics, and Leadership Walter Earl Fluker has been named a recipient of a 2023 Four Freedoms Award by the Roosevelt Institute. Presented biennially, the awards are based on 32nd U.S. president Franklin D. Roosevelt’s historic 1941 “Four Freedoms” speech to Congress and honor those who exemplify core freedoms that uphold American democracy: freedom of speech and expression, freedom of worship, freedom from want, and freedom from fear.
Fluker is this year’s Freedom of Worship award winner, recognized for “carrying on the legacies of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Howard Thurman—from helping students navigate the ethical questions of today to being a thought leader for Black churches.”
This year’s honorees also include Nancy Pelosi, speaker emerita of the U.S. House of Representatives, who received the overarching Freedom Medal in recognition of her lifelong service to the nation. Other recipients are Ady Barkan, creator of the Fed Up campaign and founder & co-executive director of Be A Hero (Freedom from Want Award); U.S. Senator Bennie Thompson (Freedom from Fear Award); and Tracie Hall, executive director of the American Library Association (Freedom of Speech and Expression Award). Learn more here.
Past recipients of the Freedom of Worship Award include Coretta Scott King, Elie Wiesel, Eboo Patel, Sister Simone Campbell, Ambassador Andrew Young, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Krista Tippett, and U.S. Senator Raphael Warnock.
The awards ceremony will take place on September 23 in Hyde Park, New York, home of the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum. The event is free and open to the public.
The Roosevelt Institute is a think tank and campus network that addresses issues of labor and wages, corporate versus public power, and the economics of racism and gender inequity. It is a nonprofit partner to the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum that aims to use the past to inform and redefine the future American economy.