Oprah and 'Rwanda' Hero To Receive Freedom Award

Oprah Winfrey and Paul Rusesabagina, the man who inspired, with his heroism in the face of genocide, the film Hotel Rwanda, were announced yesterday as recipients of top honors from the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis, Tennessee.

The museum, built around the former Lorraine Motel where Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in 1968, said Winfrey and Rusesabagina will receive its 2005 Freedom Awards.

Paul Rusesabagina has received the International Freedom Award (previously given to Bono and Nelson Mandela) for his heroism during the Rwandan civil war in 1994.

Paul, the manager of a Belgian hotel in Rwandan capital Kigali and his wife Tatiana sheltered an increasing number (eventually almost 1,300) moderate Hutus and Tutsis in the four-star Belgian-run hotel, who are being hunted down for slaughter by Hutu extremists with scythes and machetes.

Previous winners include King's widow, Coretta Scott King, former Presidents Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter.

Oprah Winfrey will receive the award in honor of her work to improve the lives of poor children in Africa and helping create a U.S. database of convicted child abusers.
She will receive the museum's National Freedom Award at a banquet in Memphis in November.