President Joe Biden awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom to 19 recipients on Saturday afternoon, including Black American luminaries, actor Denzel Washington, former NBA star and business mogul Earvin “Magic” Johnson, and the late civil rights activist Fannie Lou Hamer. Other recipients included former Secretary of State, U.S. Senator and First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, musician Bono, actor Michael J. Fox, the late Robert F. Kennedy, Sr., fashion designer Ralph Lauren, and longtime Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour. The ceremony unfolded in the historic White House East Room, where President Biden noted President Abraham Lincoln and Black abolitionist Frederick Douglass stood to “unify the…
Author: Gerren Keith Gaynor
Longtime Congressman Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., received one of the highest civilian honors on Thursday when President Joe Biden awarded him the Presidential Citizens Medal. Closing out the final days of his term, which ends on Jan. 20, Biden presented Thompson, 76, with the prestigious presidential award during a White House ceremony held in the East Room. For Thompson, who has been in Congress for more than 30 years and before that, served in local government, the presidential honor is years in the making. “Long before he was the [Jan. 6] Select Committee chairman and chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, Congressman Thompson fought…