#presidential medal of freedom
In 1961, Rita Moreno became the first Hispanic actress to win an Academy Award for her role as Anita in “West Side Story.” She is also known for starring in “Singing in the Rain” and “The King and I” on stage, as well as being one of only 12 EGOT winners, with two Emmys, a Grammy, an Oscar, and a Tony.
In 2004, Moreno received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President George W. Bush, and in 2009, she received the National Medal of the Arts from President Barack Obama.
In celebration of Hispanic Heritage Month, learn more about Rita Moreno’s achievements and contributions to the entertainment industry.
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Ellen DeGeneres received a Presidential Medal of Freedom yesterday.
This is what Barack Obama said in her honour:
“It’s easy to forget now, when we’ve come so far, where now, marriage is equal under the law, just how much courage was required for Ellen to come out on the most public of stages almost 20 years ago. Just how important it was, not just to the LGBT community but for all of us to see somebody so full of kindness and light, somebody we liked so much, somebody who could be our neighbour or our colleague or our sister, challenge our own assumptions. Remind us that we have more in common than we realise. Push our country in the direction of justice. What an incredible burden that was to bear. To risk your career like that, people don’t do that very often. And then to have the hopes of millions on your shoulders. But it’s like Ellen says, “We all want a tortilla chip, that can support the weight of guacamole.” Which really makes no sense to me. But I thought would break the mood because I was getting kind of choked up. And she did pay a price. We don’t remember this. I hadn’t remembered it. She did, for a pretty long stretch of time, even in Hollywood. And yet, today, every day, in every way, Ellen counters what too often divides us, with the countless things that bind us together, inspires us to be better, one joke, one dance at a time.”
DECEMBER 1 - ROSA PARKS
Today marks the 60th anniversary of the day Rosa Parks famously refused to give up her seat on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama. Though she was not the first to resist bus segregation - preceded by Irene Morgan,Claudette Colvin and several others - Parks undeniably served as an important figure in the Civil Rights Movement.
“People always say that I didn’t give up my seat because I was tired,” she wrote in her 1992 autobiography. “But that isn’t true. I was not tired physically, or no more tired than I usually was at the end of a working day. I was not old, although some people have an image of me as being old then. I was forty-two. No, the only tired I was, was tired of giving in.”
Parks’ many recognitions include the NAACP’s 1979 Spingarn Medal, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the Congressional Gold Medal, and a posthumous statue in the United States Capitol’s National Statuary Hall. Upon her death in 2005, she became the first woman to lie in honor at the Capitol Rotunda.
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