Freedom Collection is a digital repository sponsored by the George W. Bush Institute at the George W. Bush Presidential Center on

Southern Methodist University Southern Methodist University (SMU) is a Private university, private research university in Dallas, Texas, United States, with a satellite campus in Taos County, New Mexico. SMU was founded on April 17, 1911, by the Methodist Episcopal Church, ...

's campus in

Dallas, Texas Dallas () is a city in the U.S. state of Texas and the most populous city in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, the List of Texas metropolitan areas, most populous metropolitan area in Texas and the Metropolitan statistical area, fourth-most ...

. The collection documents major players in human rights and freedom movements around the world during the 20th and 21st centuries through video interviews and documents. Contributors include former president of

Liberia Liberia, officially the Republic of Liberia, is a country on the West African coast. It is bordered by Sierra Leone to Liberia–Sierra Leone border, its northwest, Guinea to Guinea–Liberia border, its north, Ivory Coast to Ivory Coast–Lib ...

Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Syrian dissident and author Ammar Abdulhamid, former president of

Czechoslovakia Czechoslovakia ( ; Czech language, Czech and , ''Česko-Slovensko'') was a landlocked country in Central Europe, created in 1918, when it declared its independence from Austria-Hungary. In 1938, after the Munich Agreement, the Sudetenland beca ...

and the

Czech Republic The Czech Republic, also known as Czechia, and historically known as Bohemia, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. The country is bordered by Austria to the south, Germany to the west, Poland to the northeast, and Slovakia to the south ...

Václav Havel Václav Havel (; 5 October 193618 December 2011) was a Czech statesman, author, poet, playwright, and dissident. Havel served as the last List of presidents of Czechoslovakia, president of Czechoslovakia from 1989 until 1992, prior to the dissol ...

, Chinese civil rights activist Chen Guangcheng, former president of Peru

Alejandro Toledo Alejandro Celestino Toledo Manrique (; born 28 March 1946) is a Peruvian former politician who served as President of Peru, from 2001 to 2006. He gained international prominence after leading the opposition against president Alberto Fujimori, w ...

, and Egyptian author

Saad Eddin Ibrahim Saad Eddin Ibrahim (, ) (31 December 1938 – 29 September 2023) was an Egyptian sociologist and author. He was one of Egypt's leading human rights and democracy activists and a strong critic of former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. Biograp ...

. At its launch on March 28, 2012, the collection consisted of 56 interviews. As of 2022, the Freedom Collection website was last updated in 2016 and its YouTube channel, where video interviews are available to watch, was last updated in October 2015. It is unclear if the project is still active.

Physical collection

The Freedom Collection is housed at the Bush Presidential Center in Dallas and displays several important documents and items from human rights movements. The first gift was an early draft of the 1963 Tibetan Constitution from the

Dalai Lama The Dalai Lama (, ; ) is the head of the Gelug school of Tibetan Buddhism. The term is part of the full title "Holiness Knowing Everything Vajradhara Dalai Lama" (圣识一切瓦齐尔达喇达赖喇嘛) given by Altan Khan, the first Shu ...

and features handwritten notes in the margins. In 2018, Bob Fu donated a bible handwritten by "members of house churches in China while they were prisoners in Chinese labor camps." The Lawton Foundation donated the

Presidential Medal of Freedom The Presidential Medal of Freedom is the highest civilian award of the United States, alongside the Congressional Gold Medal. It is an award bestowed by decision of the president of the United States to "any person recommended to the President ...

awarded to Cuban activist Óscar Elías Biscet in 2007 to display until Biscet was released from political prison in Cuba. Biscet collected the medal in 2016. In 2014, the Collection produced the short documentary ''Freedom Denied: Cuba's Black Spring Continues''. The following year, the archive was used to supplement high school curricula focused on "global struggles for liberty" written by the Bush Presidential Center.

Interviews

As of 2022, the online collection has 95 video interviews, which can be organized by region:

The Americas

Greater Middle East

Sub-Saharan Africa

Asia

Europe

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Freedom Collection 2012 establishments in the United States Archives in the United States Southern Methodist University