President Obama awards 16 with Medal of Freedom

President Barack Obama on Thursday named 16 recipients of the Medal of Freedom, the country’s highest civilian honor, which recognizes contributions to world peace, culture and the nation’s interest.


Among the new honorees are Sen. Ted Kennedy, tennis legend Billie Jean King, retired Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, anti-apartheid activist Desmond Tutu and Oscar-winning actor Sidney Poitier — all chosen for their work as “agents of change,” according to a White House statement.


“These outstanding men and women represent an incredible diversity of backgrounds,” Obama said in a statement. “Their tremendous accomplishments span fields from science to sports, from fine arts to foreign affairs. Yet they share one overarching trait: Each has been an agent of change. Each saw an imperfect world and set about improving it, often overcoming great obstacles along the way.”


“Their relentless devotion to breaking down barriers and lifting up their fellow citizens sets a standard to which we all should strive,” the president said.


Posthumous recipients include former Rep. Jack Kemp, who also served as Housing and Urban Development secretary and was a vice presidential candidate, and San Francisco Supervisor Harvey Milk, the first openly gay elected official from a major city, who was assassinated in 1978.


The awards will be pre­sented on Aug. 12.


Other recipients are Nancy Goodman Brinker, the founder of Susan G. Komen for the Cure, a breast cancer awareness group; Pedro Jose Greer Jr., a physician who founded an agency that provides medical care to homeless patients; Stephen Hawking, an internationally recognized theoretical physicist and author of “A Brief History of Time”; civil rights leader the Rev. Joseph Lowery; Dr. Joseph Medicine Crow, the last living Plains Indian war chief; Tony Award-winning actress, singer and dancer Chita Rivera; Muhammad Yunus, an economist who pioneered the use of “micro-loans” to combat poverty; Janet Davison Rowley, a leukemia researcher; and Mary Robinson, the first female president of Ireland.



Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0709/25641.html#ixzz0MqKKX9Z8

Can't believe Desmond Tutu doesn't have a hundred of these by now, though...