According to Dharamsala-based Central Tibetan administration (CTA), the Dalai Lama will receive the award Sep 23 at The Peabody hotel in Memphis in the US.

The museum will also present the National Freedom Award to Myrlie Evers-Williams, widow of slain civil rights champion Medgar Evers.

The Dalai Lama, spiritual leader of six million Tibetans, lives in this Indian hill town at the head of a government-in-exile. He fled Tibet in 1959 after a failed uprising against Chinese rule.