Lech Walesa to receive Lincoln prize in Chicago

Former Polish president and Solidarity founder Lech Walesa is to receive an award in Chicago from the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library Foundation.

Walesa is scheduled to receive the Lincoln Leadership Award on Thursday, Feb. 9, at a hotel in downtown Chicago. The foundation gives the prize to recognize outstanding leadership. Foundation CEO Carla Knorowski says Walesa has lived a life devoted to “individual equality, reform and democracy.”

Previous recipients have included retired U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Apollo 13 astronaut James A. Lovell Jr.

In 1989, Walesa led the Solidarity anti-communist movement in negotiations with the authorities that eventually ended communism in Poland. He served as Poland’s president from 1990 to 1995.