About The Liberator Awards

The Liberator Awards were created by The SOAP Project to unite people from around the country who are working for the same cause: fighting human trafficking. They were also created with the hopes of highlighting the work of amazing individuals and groups. Everyone will tell you: this is hard stuff to do. We should diligently celebrate those who do it not because it is easy, but because it is right. The inspiration and namesake for this event is William Lloyd Garrison.

William Lloyd Garrison (December 12, 1805 - May 24, 1879) was a prominent American abolitionist, journalist, suffragist, and social reformer. He is best known as the editor of the first abolitionist newspaper, The Liberator. He promoted immediate emancipation of slaves in the United States. In the 1870s, Garrison also became a prominent voice for the women's suffrage movement.

Garrison became famous as one of the most articulate, as well as most radical, opponents of slavery. His approach to emancipation stressed “moral suasion”, non-violence, and passive resistance. While some other abolitionists of the time favored gradual emancipation, Garrison argued for “immediate and complete emancipation of all slaves”.

Nominations: Nominations for 'Radical Abolitionists' are made by the public during the month of January. This is National Human Trafficking Awareness Month and the perfect time to honor people and organizations for their hard work in fighting human trafficking. The Requirements are that they must be an upstanding individual or organization and do the work in the U.S. Winners announced at award ceremony March 29, 2025.

Voting:  All approved nominations are then added to the website on Feb 1st. Nominees are responsible for accepting the nomination and submitting a bio and photo. Voting is open to the public the first 15 days of February for all categories except Liberator of the Year and Survivor of the Year. The public may vote for up to 3 people in each category, each day. 

Determining the Finalists and Winner: All nominees are winners in our eyes because it takes a village to fight this horrible crime. However, we would like to honor those who have gone above and beyond in this fight. This motivate us to keep going and also inspires others! Because this is not a popularity contest, we have added two more layers of determining the finalists and winner. Once the popular votes are tallied, the top 5 with the most votes then move onto a weighted vote from all previous Liberator Winners. The top 4 Finalists are determined and then they move onto another weighted vote from the previous and current SOAP Project Board of Directors to determine the winner of each category. 

• The Survivor of the Year is determined by the previous Liberator winners and the Board. 

• The Liberator of the Year is selected by the Board of Directors. 

• Other awards may also be given at the discretion of the Board. 

The Finalists will be invited to the Liberator Awards and provided a free ticket along with a companion ticket. They will receive a free hotel room if they live outside of Columbus Ohio. We also are looking for donors to help us be able to provide airfare for the finalists. 

Finalists are expected to attend or have a proxy attend in their place. Not attending may result in losing the finalist position.