The award is given to artists who capture "Steinbeck’s empathy, commitment to democratic values, and belief in the dignity of people who by circumstance are pushed to the fringes.
The phrase "in the souls of the people" comes from Chapter 25 of The Grapes of Wrath and captures the writer's enduring legacy as an engaged and socially aware artist.
From the 1930s on Steinbeck wrote about "the people," his heart open to the longing, loneliness, despair and triumph of those on the edges.
Thomas Steinbeck wrote that the awardee is a "planetary patriot," which means, a person who, in keeping with Maurice Steinbeck's understanding of the highest aspirations of an artist, "stands up against the stones of condemnation, and speaks for those who are given no real voice in the halls of justice, or the halls of government.
[3] Ted Cady, the chair of the Martha Heasley Cox Center's award selection committee and former Event Director for the Student Union, has organized all of the Award presentations.