President Obama will be awarding the Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor, to 13 persons today. Among those receiving the award is Dolores Huerta, 82, co-founder (with Cesar Chavez) of the National Farmworkers Association in 1962. Says Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis:
Dolores stood side by side with Cesar Chavez and together, they did what people said could not be done. They protected the grape pickers. They got disability insurance and family aid to protect farm workers who got hurt in the California fields. They pushed-and passed-the first law giving farm workers the right to bargain and negotiate for safer conditions and better wages. And together, they taught the doubters a lesson.
No politician was too powerful. No farmer was too rich. No cause was too difficult. When some people said, "No, no we can't." They said, "Yes, we can" Si, se puede.
Dolores is a luchadora who endured arrests, death threats and beatings - a fearless woman who at the age of 58, was beaten and nearly killed by a San Francisco police officer during a non-violent and lawful protest. She suffered broken bones, but never a broken spirit. I'm proud to call her my teacher, my role model, and mi hermana.
Others receiving the award today are: singer Bob Dylan, astronaut and former senator John Glenn, Israeli president Shimon Peres, author Toni Morrison, former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, John Doar, assistant attorney general in charge of civil rights at the Department of Justice during the 1960s, William Foege, physician and former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, who led the campaign to eradicate smallpox, Gordon Hirabayashi, who fought the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II, Jan Karski, officer in the Polish Underground in World War II and later a professor at Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service, Juliette Gordon Low, founder of the Girl Scouts in 1912, who died in 1927, John Paul Stevens, associate justice of the US Supreme Court from 1975 to 2010, and Pat Summitt, basketball coach who has won more games than any other coach, and spokeswoman against Alzheimer's disease.
Image by Barbara Carrasco.
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