Lech Wałęsa

On the first episode of VOC’s Profiles in Freedom, a Witness Conversation Series, Dr. Elizabeth Spalding, VOC Chairman and Founding Director of the VOC Museum sat down with dissident, Nobel Peace Prize laureate, and former President of the Republic of Poland Lech Wałęsa.

After losing his job at the Lenin Shipyard in Gdańsk for standing up to the communist regime, Wałęsa led the Solidarity Free Trade Union from a local movement advocating for workers’ rights to a revolution that united Poland against their totalitarian rulers—and toppled a brutal regime. Wałęsa would go on to become Poland’s first president elected by the people and remains a guiding light in the fight against communism to this day.

Watch the full conversation, streamed live in partnership with C-SPAN, here.