Steven Spielberg has received more than his fair share of awards for his filmmaking over the years, now he will be honored for his humanitarian efforts as he has been announced as the sole recipient of The National Constitution Center’s 2009 Liberty Medal.
The award was established in 1988 by We the People 200 to commemorate the U.S. Constitution’s bicentennial and "honor men and women of courage and conviction who strive to secure the blessings of liberty to people around the globe," according to its website. It will be presented to Spielberg during a ceremony at the National Constitution Center (NCC) at the Independence Mall in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on October 8 by President Bill Clinton, who also serves as the NCC’s chairman.
"The Founding Fathers called upon each of us to serve as active participants in our democracy. Through his work in film and philanthropy, Steven Spielberg has heeded that call by reminding
us of the power each of us has to make a difference," said the National Constitution Center President and Chief Executive Officer Linda E. Johnson.
In addition to producing and directing politically oriented films such as Empire of the Sun, Schindler’s List, Amistad, and Saving Private Ryan, Spielberg also established the Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation in 1994 to chronicle video and oral histories of survivors and witnesses of the Holocaust. The foundation currently houses the largest archive of testimony regarding genocide in the world, with over 52,000 videos with 105,000 hours of testimony in 32 languages representing 56 countries.
In 2006, the Foundation became part of the University of Southern California, changed its name to the USC Shoah Foundation Institute for Visual History and Education, and expanded its mission to collect testimony from survivors of other genocides as well, including the 1994 Rwandan genocide.
Past Liberty Medal winners include Nelson Mandela, Colin Powell, Bono, Kofi Annan, and Sandra Day O’Connor. The award was administered by the NCC for the first time in 2006 when Clinton and President George H.W. Bush were co-recipients of the award.
