Prominent Civil Rights Leaders Honored among 16 Presidential Medal of Freedom Award Recipients

By Hannah Cornfield, a Fall 2013 Leadership Conference Education Fund Intern

On Wednesday, November 20, President Barack Obama awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom to 16 recipients, notably Bayard Rustin, along with Cordy Tindell “C.T.” Vivian, Bill Clinton and Gloria Steinem, who have all worked to advance civil and human rights in the United States.

“These are men and women who in their extraordinary lives remind us all of the beauty of the human spirit,” Obama said during a ceremony at the White House.

Throughout his life, Rustin pushed for economic and social justice, advocated for the rights of refugees and others displaced by war, and, increasingly later in life, became a fierce advocate for LGBT rights. An advisor to the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., he promoted nonviolent resistance, participated in one of the first Freedom Rides, organized the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, and fought tirelessly for marginalized communities at home and abroad.  As an openly gay African American, Rustin stood at the intersection of several fights for equal rights.

Rustin’s unmatched organizing skills, tenacity, and unyielding belief in the humanity of all helped to shape the civil and human rights movement into the broad-based coalition that it is today. He is perhaps one of the most important figures of the modern civil and human rights movement, responsible for instructing Dr. King in the philosophies and organizing tactics of nonviolent civil resistance and helping to develop the Congress on Racial Equality and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee into two of America’s most important organizations for social justice.

Posthumously bestowing this tremendous honor on Rustin is a critical acknowledgment of the unique and often unheralded role that organizers play in advancing civil and human rights in the United States, and is particularly appropriate and historic this year, the 50th anniversary of the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, of which Rustin was a primary organizer.

The 2013 Presidential Medal of Freedom recipients also included Ernie Banks, Ben Bradlee, Daniel Inouye (posthumous), Daniel Kahneman, Richard Lugar, Loretta Lynn, Mario Molina, Sally Ride (posthumous), Arturo Sandoval, Dean Smith, Patricia Wald and Oprah Winfrey.