The Presidential Medal of Freedom is the nation's highest civilian honor.
WASHINGTON, DC – President Joe Biden on Friday, May 3, awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor, to 19 people.
One of them was Elizabeth Dole from North Carolina.
Dole is a former U.S. senator who became the first woman elected to the North Carolina state legislature in 2002.
The Salisbury native graduated from Duke University in 1958 with a degree in political science and later earned a law degree from Harvard University.
Before entering the Senate, he served as Commissioner of the Federal Trade Commission in the Nixon administration, Secretary of Transportation in the Reagan administration, and Secretary of Labor in the George H.W. Bush administration.
Dole also served as president of the American Red Cross from 1991 to 1999.
Elizabeth Dole was married to Republican Kansas State Senator Bob Dole, who ran for president three times. Bob Dole passed away in 2021.
Other recipients of the Presidential Medal of Freedom are:
- Michael Bloomberg — businessman and three-term mayor of New York
- Gregory Boyle — Jesuit Catholic priest who founded Homeboy Industries in Los Angeles
- James Clyburn — Democratic U.S. Representative from South Carolina
- Phil Donahue — journalist and pioneer of daytime television talk shows
- Medgar Evers (posthumously) – fought racism in Mississippi, killed in 1963
- Al Gore — Former Democratic Vice President, U.S. Senator, U.S. House of Representatives
- Clarence B. Jones — civil rights activist and lawyer who helped draft Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s “I Have a Dream” speech
- John Kerry — Vietnam veteran, former U.S. Secretary of State, Democratic U.S. Senator
- Frank Lautenberg (posthumous) — five-term Democratic U.S. senator from New Jersey, died in 2013
- Katie Ledecky — 7-time Olympic swimming gold medalist and the most decorated female swimmer in history
- Opal Lee — educator and activist who helped make Juneteenth a federally recognized holiday
- Ellen Ochoa — first Hispanic woman in space and second female director of NASA's Johnson Space Center
- Nancy Pelosi — Democratic U.S. Representative from California and 52nd Speaker of the House of Representatives
- Jane Rigby — astronomer and chief scientist of the world's most powerful telescope
- Teresa Romero — President of United Farm Workers, first Latina to serve as president of a national union in the United States
- Judy Shepard — Co-founder of the Matthew Shepard Foundation, an LGBTQ rights organization founded in honor of her murdered son.
- Jim Thorpe — star multisport athlete and first Native American to win an Olympic gold medal, died in 1953
- Michelle Yeoh — long-time actress who recently became the first Asian to win a Best Actress Oscar
