According to The Washington Post, Winfrey got the award for being “one of the world’s most successful broadcast journalists” and philanthropists. The highest honor that can be bestowed upon a civilian, the Presidential Medal of Freedom was given to 16 people, including feminist writer and women’s rights activist Gloria Steinem, Washington Post editor Benjamin C. Bradlee and former president Bill Clinton. President Obama saved Clinton for last and thanked him for his advice, counsel and his work on helping natural disaster victims.
The Medal was also bestowed, posthumously to Bayard Rustin, the openly gay civil rights leader who worked alongside Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
The Post reports that when the president spoke about Oprah, he said: “…her bosses told her she should change her name to Susie. I have to pause here to say, I got the same advice. Oh, they didn’t say I should be named Susie, but they suggested I should change my name.”
He went on asserting that Oprah is living proof of the tenacity of the human spirit, referencing Oprah’s “childhood of poverty and abuse to the pinnacle of the entertainment universe.”
At the end of the ceremony, President Obama made these remarks:
“I hope we carry away from this a reminder of what JFK understood to be the essence of the American spirit. Some of us may be less talented, but we all have the opportunity to serve and to open people’s hearts and minds in our smaller orbits. So I hope that everybody’s been inspired as I have been, participating in being with these people here today.”
Congratulations O!
Oprah Awarded Presidential Medal Of Freedom by Obama was originally published on wzakcleveland.com
