Obama Awards Billie Jean King and Harvey Milk Medal of Freedom

Two LGBT greats, Harvey Milk and Billie Jean King, will be honored Wednesday with a Medal of Freedom at the White House. President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama will host the ceremony in the East Room of the White House around 3 p.m.

Sen. Edward Kennedy, a tenacious advocate for LGBT rights over his 46 years in Congress, will also be among the 16 honorees.

The White House released the following biographies for each of today's Medal of Freedom recipients:

Nancy Goodman Brinker

Nancy Goodman Brinker is the founder of Susan G. Komen for the Cure, the world’s leading breast cancer grassroots organization. Brinker established the organization in memory of her sister, who passed away from breast cancer in 1980. Through innovative events like Race for the Cure, the organization has given and invested over $1.3 billion for research, health services, and education services since its founding in 1982 and developed a worldwide grassroots network of breast cancer survivors and activists who are working together to save lives, empower people, ensure quality care for all and energize science to find cures. Brinker has received several awards for her work and has also served in government as U.S. ambassador to Hungary (2001–2003), ghief of protocol of the U.S. (2007–2009), and chair of the President’s Cancer Panel (1990). In May, Brinker was named the first-ever World Health Organization's Goodwill Ambassador for Cancer Control.



Pedro José Greer Jr.

Dr. Pedro Jose Greer is a physician and the assistant dean of academic affairs at the Florida International University School of Medicine, where he also serves as chair of the Department of Humanities, Health and Society. Dr. Greer is the founder of Camillus Health Concern, an agency that provides medical care to over 10,000 homeless patients a year in the city of Miami. He is also the founder and medical director of the St. John Bosco Clinic which provides basic primary medical care to disadvantaged children and adults in the Little Havana community. He has been recognized by Presidents Clinton, Bush Sr., and Carter for his work with Miami's poor. He is also the recipient of three Papal Medals as well as the prestigious MacArthur "genius grant." He currently has a joint private practice with his father, Pedro Greer Sr.

 


Stephen Hawking

Stephen Hawking is an internationally recognized theoretical physicist who has a severe physical disability due to motor neuron disease. He is the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge University, a post previously held by Isaac Newton in 1669. In addition to his pioneering academic research in mathematics and physics, Hawking has penned three popular science books, including the best-selling A Brief History of Time. Hawking, a British citizen, believes that nonacademics should be able to access his work just as physicists are and has also published two children’s science books with his daughter. His persistence and dedication have unlocked new pathways of discovery and inspired everyday citizens.

Jack Kemp

Jack Kemp, who passed away in May 2009, served as a  U.S. congressman (1971–1989), secretary of Housing and Urban Development (1989–1993), and Republican nominee for vice president (1996). Prior to entering public service, Kemp was a professional football player (1957–1969) and led the Buffalo Bills to American Football League championships in 1964 and 1965. In Congress and as a cabinet secretary, Kemp was a self-described “bleeding-heart conservative” who worked to encourage development in underserved urban communities. In the years leading up to his death, Kemp continued seeking new solutions, raising public attention about the challenge of poverty, and working across party lines to improve the lives of Americans and others around the world.
 


Sen. Edward Kennedy

Sen. Edward M. Kennedy has served in the United States Senate for 46 years and has been one of the greatest lawmakers -- and leaders -- of our time. From reforming our public schools to strengthening civil rights laws to supporting working Americans, Senator Kennedy has dedicated his career to fighting for equal opportunity, fairness, and justice for all Americans. He has worked tirelessly to ensure that every American has access to quality and affordable health care and has succeeded in doing so for countless children, seniors, and Americans with disabilities. He has called health care reform the “cause of his life” and has championed nearly every health care bill enacted by Congress over the course of the last five decades. Known as the “Lion of the Senate,” Senator Kennedy is widely respected on both sides of the aisle for his commitment to progress and his ability to legislate.
 


Billie Jean King

Billie Jean King was an acclaimed professional tennis player in the 1960s and 1970s and has helped champion gender equality not only in sports but in all areas of public life. King beat Bobby Riggs in the “Battle of the Sexes” tennis match, then the most viewed tennis match in history. King became one of the first openly lesbian major sports figures in America when she came out in 1981. Following her professional tennis career, King became the first woman commissioner in professional sports when she cofounded and led the World Team Tennis League. The U.S. Tennis Association named the National Tennis Center, where the U.S. Open is played, the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in 2006. 
 


The Reverend Joseph Lowery

Reverend Lowery has been a leader in the U.S. civil rights movement since the early 1950s. In Mobile, Ala., at that time, he headed the Alabama Civic Affairs Association, the organization which led the movement to desegregate buses and public accommodations. Reverend Lowery later cofounded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, a leading civil rights organization, with Dr. Martin Luther King, and was chosen by Dr. King to chair the delegation delivering the demands of the Selma-to-Montgomery March to Alabama governor George Wallace. Reverend Lowery served as president of the SCLC for more than 20 years, from 1977 to 1998. He is currently a minister in the United Methodist Church and has continued to highlight important civil rights issues in the U.S. and worldwide, including apartheid in South Africa, since the 1960s. 
 


Joe Medicine Crow–High Bird

Dr. Joseph Medicine Crow, the last living Plains Indian war chief, is the author of seminal works in Native American history and culture.  He is the last person alive to have received direct oral testimony from a participant in the Battle of the Little Bighorn: His grandfather was a scout for General George Armstrong Custer. A veteran of World War II, Medicine Crow accomplished during the war all of the four tasks required to become a “war chief,” including stealing 50 Nazi SS horses from a German camp. Medicine Crow was the first member of his tribe to attend college, received his master’s degree in anthropology in 1939, and continues to lecture at universities and notable institutions like the United Nations. His contributions to the preservation of the culture and history of the First Americans are matched only by his importance as a role model to young Native Americans across the country.
 


Harvey Milk

Harvey Milk became the first openly gay elected official from a major city in the United States when he was elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 1977. Milk encouraged lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender citizens to live their lives openly and believed coming out was the only way they could change society and achieve social equality. Milk, alongside San Francisco Mayor George Moscone, was shot and killed in 1978 by Dan White, a former city supervisor.  Milk is revered nationally and globally as a pioneer of the LGBT civil rights movement for his exceptional leadership and dedication to equal rights.
 
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Sandra Day O’Connor

Justice O’Connor was the first woman ever to sit on the United States Supreme Court. Nominated by President Reagan in 1981, she served until her retirement in 2006. Prior to joining the Supreme Court, O’Connor served as a state trial and appellate judge in Arizona. She was also a member of the Arizona state senate, where she became the first woman in the United States ever to lead a state senate as Senate Majority Leader. At a time when women rarely entered the legal profession, O’Connor graduated Stanford Law School third in her class, where she served on the Stanford Law Review and was elected to the Order of the Coif. Since retiring from the Supreme Court in 2006, O’Connor has served as chancellor of the College of William and Mary, on the board of trustees of the National Constitution Center, and on the Iraq Study Group in 2006 as well as giving numerous lectures on public service. She has received numerous awards for her outstanding achievements and public service. 



Sidney Poitier

Sidney Poitier is a groundbreaking actor, becoming the top black movie star in the 1950s and 1960s. Poitier is the first African-American to be nominated for and win a Best Actor Academy Award, receive an award at a top international film festival (Venice Film Festival), and be the top-grossing movie star in the United States. Poitier insisted that the film crew on The Lost Man be at least 50% African-American and starred in the first mainstream movies portraying “acceptable” interracial marriages and interracial kissing. Poitier began his acting career without any training or experience by auditioning at the American Negro Theatre. 



Chita Rivera

Chita Rivera is an accomplished and versatile actress, singer, and dancer who has won two Tony awards and received seven more nominations while breaking barriers and inspiring a generation of women to follow in her footsteps. In 2002 she became the first Hispanic recipient of the coveted Kennedy Center Honor. Propelled to stardom by her electric performance as Anita in the original Broadway premiere of West Side Story, Rivera went on to star in additional landmark musicals such as Chicago, Kiss of the Spider Woman, The Rink, and Bye Bye Birdie. She recently starred in The Dancer’s Life, an autobiographical musical about her celebrated life in the theatre.
 


Mary Robinson

Mary Robinson was the first female president of Ireland (1990–1997) and a former United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (1997–2002), a post that required her to end her presidency four months early. Robinson served as a prominent member of the Irish senate prior to her election as President. She continues to bring attention to international issues as honorary president of Oxfam International and chairs the board of Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunizations.  Since 2002 she has been president of Realizing Rights: The Ethical Globalization Initiative, based in New York, which is an organization she founded to make human rights the compass which charts a course for globalization that is fair, just, and benefits all.
 


Janet Davison Rowley

Janet Davison Rowley, MD, is the Blum Riese Distinguished Service Professor of Medicine, Molecular Genetics, & Cell Biology and Human Genetics at the University of Chicago. She is an American human geneticist and the first scientist to identify a chromosomal translocation as the cause of leukemia and other cancers. Rowley is internationally renowned for her studies of chromosome abnormalities in human leukemia and lymphoma, which have led to dramatically improved survival rates for previously incurable cancers and the development of targeted therapies. In 1999, President Clinton awarded her the National Medal of Science -- the nation's highest scientific honor.
 


Desmond Tutu

Desmond Tutu is an Anglican archbishop emeritus who was a leading antiapartheid activist in South Africa. Widely regarded as “South Africa's moral conscience,” he served as the general secretary of the South African Council of Churches from 1978 to 1985, where he led a formidable crusade in support of justice and racial reconciliation in South Africa. He received a Nobel Peace Prize for his work through SACC in 1984. Tutu was elected archbishop of Cape Town in 1986 and chair of the South Africa Truth and Reconciliation Commission in 1995. He retired as archbishop in 1996 and is currently chair of the Elders.
 


Muhammad Yunus

Dr. Muhammad Yunus is a global leader in antipoverty efforts and pioneered the use of “micro-loans” to provide credit to poor individuals without collateral. Dr. Yunus, an economist by training, founded the Grameen Bank in 1983 in his native Bangladesh to provide small, low-interest loans to the poor to help better their livelihood and communities. Despite its low interest rates and lending to poor individuals, Grameen Bank is sustainable and 98% of its loans are repaid -- higher than other banking systems. It has spread its successful model throughout the world. Dr. Yunus received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006 for his work. 

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