(AP)
WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama honored 13 recipients of the Medal of Freedom, including former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, novelist Toni Morrison, folk singer Bob Dylan and legendary astronaut John Glenn, in a ceremony at the White House Tuesday.
Awards were also given to Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, smallpox eradicator William Foege and Pat Summitt, the winningest coach in college basketball history who recently ended her 38-year career leading the University of Tennessee’s Lady Vols.
The Presidential Medal of Freedom is the highest civilian honor in the US and, according to the White House, is awarded to individuals who have made “especially meritorious contributions to the security or national interests of the United States, to world peace, or to cultural or other significant public or private endeavors.”
“What sets these men and women apart is the incredible impact they have had on so many people,” Obama said in the East Room of the White House. “Not in short blinding bursts, but steadily over the course of a lifetime.”
The president described many of the recipients as his personal heroes, recalling how he read Morrison’s “Song of Solomon” as a kid and listened to Dylan’s music during college.
Of recipient John Doar — an assistant attorney general who handled civil rights cases during the 1960s — Obama said, “I might not be here if it hadn’t been for his work.”
He also thanked honoree Dolores Huerta, a labor and civil rights icon who co-founded the United Farm Workers of America with Cesar Chavez, for lending him her slogan — “Si, se puede,” or “Yes, we can” — for his 2008 presidential campaign.
Three recipients were honored posthumously: Juliette Gordon Low, who founded the Girl Scouts a century ago and died in 1927; Jan Karski, an officer in the Polish Underground during World War II who later became a US citizen and died in 2000; and another World War II-era figure, Gordon Hirabayashi, who openly defied Japanese internment in America and died earlier this year at age 93.
Israeli President Shimon Peres, who was not present, also earned a Medal of Freedom, which Obama said he would present to the peace advocate at a dinner next month.