{"id":1577,"date":"2009-07-31T16:22:33","date_gmt":"2009-07-31T16:22:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/news\/2009\/07\/obama-awards-medal-of-freedom.php"},"modified":"2009-07-31T16:22:33","modified_gmt":"2009-07-31T16:22:33","slug":"obama-awards-medal-of-freedom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2009\/07\/obama-awards-medal-of-freedom","title":{"rendered":"Obama Awards Medal of Freedom to Religious Leaders"},"content":{"rendered":"

(RNS) Retired Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa and the Rev. Joseph Lowery, a longtime U.S. civil rights activist, have been named recipients of the 2009 Presidential Medal of Freedom.
\n“Each has been an agent of change,” President Obama said of the 16 people who will receive the nation’s highest civilian honor. “Each saw an imperfect world and set about improving it, often overcoming great obstacles along the way.”
\nTutu was a leading opponent of apartheid in South Africa, for which he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Lowery, a United Methodist minister who gave the benediction at Obama’s inauguration, co-founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference with the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.
\nTutu and Lowery will be honored Aug. 12 along with 14 others, including Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., the late gay activist Harvey Milk, and actor Sidney Poitier.
\n“Coming from the first African-American president and to be included in his first class, with these outstanding personalities and leaders is very special,” Lowery told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
\nBy ADELLE M. BANKS
\nc. 2009 Religion News Service
\nCopyright 2009 Religion News Service. All rights reserved. No part of this transmission may be distributed or reproduced without written permission.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(RNS) Retired Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa and the Rev. Joseph Lowery, a longtime U.S. civil rights activist, have been named recipients of the 2009 Presidential Medal of Freedom. “Each has been an agent of change,” President Obama said of the 16 people who will receive the nation’s highest civilian honor. “Each saw…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":58,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1577","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nObama Awards Medal of Freedom to Religious Leaders<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2009\/07\/obama-awards-medal-of-freedom\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Obama Awards Medal of Freedom to Religious Leaders\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"(RNS) Retired Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa and the Rev. Joseph Lowery, a longtime U.S. civil rights activist, have been named recipients of the 2009 Presidential Medal of Freedom. “Each has been an agent of change,” President Obama said of the 16 people who will receive the nation’s highest civilian honor. “Each saw…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2009\/07\/obama-awards-medal-of-freedom\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Beliefnet News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-07-31T16:22:33+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"aroan\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Obama Awards Medal of Freedom to Religious Leaders","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2009\/07\/obama-awards-medal-of-freedom","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Obama Awards Medal of Freedom to Religious Leaders","og_description":"(RNS) Retired Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa and the Rev. Joseph Lowery, a longtime U.S. civil rights activist, have been named recipients of the 2009 Presidential Medal of Freedom. “Each has been an agent of change,” President Obama said of the 16 people who will receive the nation’s highest civilian honor. “Each saw…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2009\/07\/obama-awards-medal-of-freedom","og_site_name":"Beliefnet News","article_published_time":"2009-07-31T16:22:33+00:00","author":"aroan","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2009\/07\/obama-awards-medal-of-freedom","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2009\/07\/obama-awards-medal-of-freedom","name":"Obama Awards Medal of Freedom to Religious Leaders","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#website"},"datePublished":"2009-07-31T16:22:33+00:00","dateModified":"2009-07-31T16:22:33+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/c6e65092118456e72064bc1332984cfc"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2009\/07\/obama-awards-medal-of-freedom#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2009\/07\/obama-awards-medal-of-freedom"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2009\/07\/obama-awards-medal-of-freedom#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Obama Awards Medal of Freedom to Religious Leaders"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/","name":"Beliefnet News","description":"Top Religious News From Around the World","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/c6e65092118456e72064bc1332984cfc","name":"aroan","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/f35\/f3587d75a20cb88f1c76fd277ee82fc5x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/f35\/f3587d75a20cb88f1c76fd277ee82fc5x96.jpg","caption":"aroan"},"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/author\/aroan"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1577","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/58"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1577"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1577\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1577"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1577"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1577"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}