2024 PRESIDENTIAL MEDAL OF FREEDOM AWARDS

President Biden on Friday gave the nation's highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, to 19 people — with recipients covering nearly every corner of American life, including former House speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), Olympic champion Katie Ledecky, Academy Award winner Michelle Yeoh and, posthumously, civil rights leader Medgar Evers.

During a ceremony held at the White House on Friday, Biden said he had the extraordinary honor to bestow the nation's highest civilian honor to 19 incredible people whose relentless curiosity, inventiveness, ingenuity and hope have kept faith in a better tomorrow.

During his presidential tenure, Biden has awarded the medals to a range of figures, including Olympic gymnast Simone Biles, Academy Award-winning actor Denzel Washington, inventor Steve Jobs and Sandra Lindsay, a critical care nurse in New York who treated patients during the pandemic.

 

• Opal Lee: The educator and civil rights activist is known as the Grandmother of Juneteenth for her efforts to make Juneteenth a federal holiday. Decades after a mob of 500 white supremacists set fire to Lee's childhood home as the 12-year-old Lee and her family fled, she was at the White House in 2021 as Biden signed into law legislation establishing the Juneteenth holiday. We're a better nation because of you, Biden told Lee on Friday.

 

• Rep. James E. Clyburn (D-S.C.): The longtime House member, who stepped down from Democratic leadership in the chamber this year, was a pivotal supporter of Biden's during the 2020 presidential primary. Biden said during the ceremony that he would not be standing there as president if it weren't for Clyburn. We're a great nation … because we have good people like Jim Clyburn, Biden said. Of my fellow Americans, Jim is the best.

 

• Michelle Yeoh: After a decades-long Hollywood career, Yeoh last year became the first Asian artist to win best actress at the Academy Awards for her role in the offbeat action comedy Everything Everywhere All at Once. Biden said Yeoh has shattered stereotypes and glass ceilings to enrich [and] enhance American culture.

To read the complete article, see:
Biden awards Presidential Medal of Freedom to 19, including Evers, Pelosi and Ledecky (https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/05/03/presidential-medal-freedom-recipients-biden/)

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