Roosevelt Institute honors Berry, farm worker group
October 18, 2013 | 12:10 AM
The New York-based Roosevelt Institute on Wednesday presented its Four Freedoms awards to rural writer Wendell Berry and to the Florida-based Coalition of Immokalee Workers.
The medals are awarded to those who exemplify President Franklin Roosevelt’s vision of democracy as outlined in his famous January 6, 1941 address, Anna Eleanor Roosevelt, a granddaughter of Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt said at the public ceremony at St. James’ Episcopal Church on Madison Avenue, near the Roosevelt family’s historic residence in Manhattan.
Wendell Berry
Roosevelt said that the world should “look forward” to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms everywhere in the world: freedom of speech and expression, freedom to worship, freedom from want and freedom from fear.
Berry, author of “The Unsettling of America: Culture & Agriculture, and Bringing It to the Table: On Farming and Food,” was honored because “his message is essentially the same: humans must learn to live in harmony with the natural rhythms of the earth or perish,” the institute said in a news release.
Farm workers from the Coalition of Immokalee Workers
The Coalition of Immokalee Workers, a farm worker organization that launched a Campaign for Fair Food in Florida’s tomato industry in 2010, was honored for creating “a sustainable blueprint for worker-driven corporate social responsibility, winning fairer wages; work with dignity; and freedom from forced labor, sexual harassment, and violence in the workplace for nearly 100,000 workers,” the institute said.
The Roosevelt Institute also presented awards to economist Paul Krugman, Sister Simone Campbell, a social justice advocate, and Ameena Matthews, a violence interrupter.
The medals are awarded to those who exemplify President Franklin Roosevelt’s vision of democracy as outlined in his famous January 6, 1941 address, Anna Eleanor Roosevelt, a granddaughter of Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt said at the public ceremony at St. James’ Episcopal Church on Madison Avenue, near the Roosevelt family’s historic residence in Manhattan.
Wendell Berry
Roosevelt said that the world should “look forward” to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms everywhere in the world: freedom of speech and expression, freedom to worship, freedom from want and freedom from fear.
Berry, author of “The Unsettling of America: Culture & Agriculture, and Bringing It to the Table: On Farming and Food,” was honored because “his message is essentially the same: humans must learn to live in harmony with the natural rhythms of the earth or perish,” the institute said in a news release.
Farm workers from the Coalition of Immokalee Workers
The Coalition of Immokalee Workers, a farm worker organization that launched a Campaign for Fair Food in Florida’s tomato industry in 2010, was honored for creating “a sustainable blueprint for worker-driven corporate social responsibility, winning fairer wages; work with dignity; and freedom from forced labor, sexual harassment, and violence in the workplace for nearly 100,000 workers,” the institute said.
The Roosevelt Institute also presented awards to economist Paul Krugman, Sister Simone Campbell, a social justice advocate, and Ameena Matthews, a violence interrupter.
