Acclaimed filmmaker Steven Spielberg accepts the Liberty Medal Award

Award winner Steven Spielberg

Steven Spielberg, filmmaker extraordinaire adds one of Philadelphia's highest awards, the Liberty Medal, to a trophy chest boasting three Oscars along with the Irving G. Thalberg Award, six Saturn sci-fi academy awards, two Golden Globes as well as a Cecil B. DeMille Award, eight Emmys, and so much more.

Cincinnati, Ohio claims Spielberg as their native son.  Haddon Heights, NJ just a river away from Philadelphia can claim five years of his childhood.  It was an important period because waiting for his mother under the sculpted eagle in Wannamaker's sent his mind skirting in fanciful ways.  That department store in Center City Philadelphia was perhaps the start of his creative journey.  Many influences since, his filmography stretches beyond 600 works, some quite inspirational.

Former President Bill Clinton placed the Liberty Medal around his friend's neck.  He said about Spielberg, "He has empowered us all, if we simply look and listen and respond in kind."  Clasping Spielberg's hand emphasized his appreciation of the filmmaker's legacy.

Clinton is the new board chair of the National Constitution Center where the Liberty ceremony is hosted annually.  Taking the reins from former President George H. Bush pleases Clinton.  The two ex-presidents were joint medal winners in 2006, and Clinton continues Philadelphia's 20-year tradition of honoring distinguished leaders who have shown a commitment to change through concerted action. 

Spielberg is such a man, striking art as empowering as the first Liberty Medal winner Lech Walsea, founder of Solidarity in Poland, to the 12th recipients Drs. James Watson and Francis Crick, co-discoverers of DNA structure, to former Secretary of State Colin Powell, the 2002 recipient for upholding human rights and enhancing the lives of youths, to the 2007 recipients Bono and his organization DATA with food, health, and economic projects throughout Africa. 

Most people living on the planet know that Spielberg helped revolutionize special effects in the film industry.  His movies also draw audiences into some of mankind's vilest periods, but the Jewish Holocaust depicted in Schindler's List, the African Holocaust seen in Amistad, and the WWII devastation appearing in Saving Private Ryan also enraptured viewers with everyday heroes risking everything to do what is right for other people's survival, for freedom.

"My family life outside of movie-making," Spielberg highlighted in his acceptance speech, "changed the movies I make, beginning of course with Schindler's List; and these movies have appropriately led me back out into the world again."  He adopted some of the phenomenal inspiration to which Bill Clinton alluded when he founded the Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation.  Since 1994, the organization has amassed one of the largest archives on survivors and other witnesses of the Jewish Holocaust.  They have documented about 105,000 testimonies in 32 languages across 56 countries.  The stories told, he said, "have rekindled my awe of our species' fortitude and moral grandeur."  His foundation is now turning its cameras on personal survivors of the 1994 Rwandan genocide.

Spielberg espoused, "Art is and should endeavor to be among the human enterprises, which contributes to decent and free societies."  He indicates his movies, "They've pointed me toward the task of "tikkum, olam," of repairing the broken world; compelled me toward tzedakah, of giving."  The Liberty Medal comes with a $100,000 prize sponsored by Ira Lubert of Independence Capital Partners to advance Spielberg's quest.