The American Spirit Foundation was a foundation sponsored by United States entertainment figures to "enlist the entertainment industry's leadership, creativity and resources in developing and applying creative solutions to critical challenges facing America."
History
The foundation was founded in 1989 by the actor
James Stewart
James Maitland Stewart (May 20, 1908 – July 2, 1997) was an American actor and military pilot. Known for his distinctive drawl and everyman screen persona, Stewart's film career spanned 80 films from 1935 to 1991. With the strong morality ...
and convicted drug dealer and securities felon
Peter F. Paul. The foundation concentrated on both the development of education programs for public schools in the U.S. and the support of democracy movements in the former
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...
and Eastern bloc.
In its European activities, the foundation worked with the interdisciplinary studies director of the Smithsonian Institution , Russian president
Boris Yeltsin
Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin ( rus, Борис Николаевич Ельцин, p=bɐˈrʲis nʲɪkɐˈla(j)ɪvʲɪtɕ ˈjelʲtsɨn, a=Ru-Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin.ogg; 1 February 1931 – 23 April 2007) was a Soviet and Russian politician wh ...
and Polish President
Lech Wałęsa
Lech Wałęsa (; ; born 29 September 1943) is a Polish statesman, dissident, and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, who served as the President of Poland between 1990 and 1995. After winning the 1990 election, Wałęsa became the first democrati ...
.
Stewart served as honorary chair of the Foundation.
Spirit of America Awards
The Foundation gave its Spirit of America Awards to people from all professions whose "lives and careers demonstrated the vitality and success of those principles upon which the American Dream is based."
Thirty people received the award, including Muhammad Ali,
Jaime Escalante
Jaime Alfonso Escalante Gutiérrez (December 31, 1930 – March 30, 2010) was a Bolivian-American educator known for teaching students calculus from 1974 to 1991 at Garfield High School in East Los Angeles. Escalante was the subject of the 1 ...
, Yo Yo Ma, Bob Hope, Helen Hayes, Ronald Reagan, Irene Dunne, Richard O. Anderson, Roy Campanella, Buzz Aldrin, Rafer Johnson,
George Argyros
George Leon Argyros (born February 4, 1937) is an American former diplomat who served as the United States Ambassador to Spain. He is also a real estate investor and philanthropist. Argyros was the owner of Major League Baseball's Seattle Marine ...
,
Ernest Hahn, Howard Finster, Michael Crawford, Boris Yeltsin, and Lew Wasserman.
Events
The Entertainers for Education project was launched at the Fourth Spirit of America Awards Gala in Beverly Hills, December 13, 1990.
References
{{Reflist
External links
The American Spirit Foundation
Defunct organizations based in the United States