Shelby County school students and members of the Memphis community heard words of worldly wisdom from the National Civil Rights Museum 2001 Freedom Award honorees Oscar Arias and Sidney Poitier Wednesday at The Temple of Deliverence.
The Freedom Award is an annual event for the National Civil Rights Museum which honors individuals who have made outstanding contributions for the cause of freedom. One International and one National Award go to those who have had an impact on the state of civil and human rights globally and within the United States.
Oscar Arias, this year’s International Freedom Award honoree, was elected president of Costa Rica in 1986 at a time when Central America was involved in Civil War.
“When I became president of my country in 1986, the situation was indeed very serious. For the past 53 years, Costa Rica has not had any wars for one major reason: We do not have an army,” Arias said.
Arias began his term by calling together the nine presidents of the Latin American countries for what became the Arias Peace Plan, drafted in 1987. The plan called for dialog, ceasefire, freedom of speech and free elections in El Salvador, Guatemala and Nicaragua. Arias’ plan was signed in August of that year.
He was also awarded the Nobel Peace Prize that year for his efforts directing monetary awards to establish the Arias Foundation for Peace and Human Progress.
His term as president ended in 1990, and he has since been working to promote peace on a global basis.
“The people of the United States are in an extremely delicate position at this time (after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks),” Arias said. “You are struggling to find a response that will stop the evil of terrorism. But everyone knows that the answer to more than 5,000 lives lost in New York and Washington is not to take another 5,000 innocent lives in Afghanistan or anywhere else in the world.”
Arias quoted from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s book Where Do We Go From Here in saying, “Through violence you murder the hater, but you do not murder hate. In fact violence increases hate.”
Renowned actor Sidney Poitier, this year’s National Freedom Award honoree, emphasized the importance of history in his talk.
“Knowing the history of a thing, a place, a circumstance, a person, a people, provides you with the information necessary to deal effectively in your own interests with that thing, that place, that circumstance, that person and those people, whomever they may be,” Poitier said.
Poitier’s career took off in 1950 with his first major role in No Way Out. He went on to star in numerous films, receiving multiple Academy Award nominations and becoming the first African American to receive the award for best actor in 1964 for Lilies of the Field.
Off screen, Poitier was a supporter of the civil rights movement, marching with King in 1963 and turning down roles that portrayed negative stereotypes of African Americans.
At 74, Poitier stressed the importance of history.
“If you don’t know the history of this Earth, then you won’t know that information transforms into education,” Poitier said. “If you don’t know the history of education, then you won’t understand that education transforms into knowledge. If you don’t know the history of knowledge then you won’t be aware that knowledge, on rare occasion, does transform into wisdom; and if you don’t know the history of wisdom you won’t know all the reasons that grandpa and grandma are the remarkable people that they are.”
Mark Stansbury, new assistant to the president of The U of M, served on The Freedom Award Public Forum committee for his fifth year.
“Hopefully, people will pull together to help promote freedom and justice not only in Memphis, but in America,” Stansbury said. “The University of Memphis has been very supportive of the National Civil Rights Museum since its inception.”
Past Freedom Award recipients are Rosa Parks, James Farmer, Coretta Scott King, Barbara Jordan, Desmond Tutu, Marian Wright Edelman, Thurgood Marshall, Jimmy Carter, Dorothy Height, Elie Weisel, Yitzhak Rabin, Andrew Young, Colin Powell, Jackie Robinson, Benjamin Hooks, Mikhail Gorbachev, Harry Belafonte, Lech Walesa and Nelson Mandela.
