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Presidential Medal of Freedom Recipients



President Donald J. Trump


November 16, 2018

Dr. Miriam Adelson

Senator Orrin G. Hatch

Alan C. Page

Elvis Aaron Presley

George Herman "Babe" Ruth, Jr.

Justice Antonin Scalia

Roger Staubach


President Barack H. Obama


August 12, 2009

Nancy Goodman Brinker

Dr. Pedro José Greer, Jr.

Stephen Hawking

Representative Jack Kemp

Senator Edward Kennedy

Billie Jean King

Reverend Joseph Lowery

Joseph Medicine Crow

Harvey Milk

Justice Sandra Day O’Connor

Sidney Poitier

Chita Rivera

Mary Robinson

Dr. Janet Davison Rowley

Archbishop Desmond Tutu

Muhammad Yunus

February 15, 2011

John H. Adams

Maya Angelou

Warren Buffett

President George H. W. Bush

Jasper Johns

Gerda Weissmann Klein

Representative John Lewis

Dr. Tom Little

Yo-Yo Ma

Sylvia Mendez

Angela Merkel

Stan Musial

Bill Russell

Jean Kennedy Smith

John J. Sweeney

June 30, 2011

Robert M. Gates

May 29, 2012

Madeleine Albright

John Doar

Bob Dylan

Dr. William Foege

John Glenn

Gordon Hirabayashi

Dolores Huerta

Jan Karski

Juliette Gordon Low

Toni Morrison

Justice John Paul Stevens

Pat Summitt

June 13, 2012

Shimon Peres

November 20, 2013

Ernie Banks

Ben Bradlee

Bill Clinton

Senator Daniel Inouye

Daniel Kahneman

Senator Richard Lugar

Loretta Lynn

Mario Molina

Sally Ride

Bayard Rustin

Arturo Sandoval

Dean Smith

Gloria Steinem

Cordy Tindell "C.T." Vivian

Patricia Wald

Oprah Winfrey

November 24, 2014

Alvin Ailey

Isabel Allende

Tom Brokaw

James Chaney

Mildred Dresselhaus

Representative John Dingell

Andrew Goodman

Ethel Kennedy

Suzan Harjo

Representative Abner Mikva

Representative Patsy Takemoto Mink

Representative Edward Roybal

Michael Schwerner

Charles Sifford

Robert Solow

Meryl Streep

Marlo Thomas

Stevie Wonder

November 24, 2015

Yogi Berra

Bonnie Carroll

Representative Shirley Chisholm

Emilio Estefan

Gloria Estefan

Billy Frank, Jr.

Representative Lee Hamilton

Katherine G. Johnson

Willie Mays

Senator Barbara Mikulski

Itzhak Perlman

William Ruckelshaus

Stephen Sondheim

Steven Spielberg

Barbra Streisand

James Taylor

Minoru Yasui

November 22, 2016

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

Elouise Cobell

Ellen DeGeneres

Robert De Niro

Richard Garwin

Bill and Melinda Gates

Frank Gehry

Margaret H. Hamilton

Tom Hanks

Grace Hopper

Michael Jordan

Maya Lin

Lorne Michaels

Newt Minow

Eduardo Padrón

Robert Redford

Diana Ross

Vin Scully

Bruce Springsteen

Cicely Tyson

January 12, 2017

Vice President Joseph R. Biden, Jr.


President George W.  Bush


July 9, 2002

Hank Aaron

Bill Cosby

Placido Domingo

Peter Drucker

Katharine Graham

Dr. D.A. Henderson

Irving Kristol

Nelson Mandela

Gordon Moore

Nancy Reagan

Fred Rogers

A.M. Rosenthal

July 23, 2003

Jacques Barzun

Julia Child

Roberto Clemente

Van Cliburn

Vaclav Havel

Charlton Heston

Edward Teller

Dave Thomas

Justice Byron White

James Q. Wilson

John Wooden

November 12, 2003

Lord Robertson

December 2, 2003

Robert L. Bartley

June 4, 2004

Pope John Paul II

June 23, 2004

Senator Edward Brooke

Doris Day

Vartan Gregorian

Gilbert Grosvenor

Gordon Hinckley

Estee Lauder

Rita Moreno

Arnold Palmer

Arnall Patz

Norman Podhoretz

Walter Wriston

December 14, 2004

L. Paul Bremer

General Tommy Franks

George Tenet

November 9, 2005

Muhammad Ali

Carol Burnett

Vinton Cerf

Robert Conquest

Aretha Franklin

Alan Greenspan

Andy Griffith

Paul Harvey

Robert Kahn

Representative Sonny Montgomery

General Richard B. Myers

Jack Nicklaus

Frank Robinson

Paul Rusesabagina

December 15, 2006

Ruth Johnson Colvin

Norman Francis

Paul Johnson

Riley "B.B." King

Joshua Lederberg

David McCullough

Representative Norman Mineta

John "Buck" O'Neil

William Safire

Natan Sharansky

November 5, 2007

Gary S. Becker

Dr. Oscar Elias Biscet

Dr. Francis S. Collins

Benjamin L. Hooks

Representative Henry J. Hyde

Brian P. Lamb

Harper Lee

Ellen Johnson Sirleaf

June 19, 2008

Dr. Benjamin Carson

Dr. Anthony Fauci

Representative Tom Lantos

General Peter Pace

Donna Shalala

Laurence Silberman

January 13, 2009

Tony Blair

John Howard

Alvaro Uribe

January 15, 2009

Ryan Crocker


President William J. Clinton


May 5, 1993

Senator J. William Fulbright

June 20, 1993

Arthur Ashe

September 30, 1993

Colin Powell

November 2, 1993

Martha Raye

November 30, 1993

Justice William Brennan

Marjory Stoneman Douglas

Justice Thurgood Marshall

Joseph L. Rauh Jr.

John Minor Wisdom

August 8, 1994

Herbert Block

Cesar E. Chavez

Arthur Flemming

James Grant

Dorothy Irene Height

Representative Barbara Jordan

Joseph Land Kirkland

Representative Robert H. Michel

Sargent Shriver

September 29, 1995

Peggy Charren

William T. Coleman Jr.

Joan Ganz Cooney

John Hope Franklin

Leon Higginbotham Jr.

Frank M. Johnson

Dr. C. Everett Koop

Senator Gaylord Nelson

Walter Reuther

James Rouse

Willie Velasquez

Lew Wasserman

September 9, 1996

Cardinal Joseph Bernardin

James Brady

Millard Fuller

David Alan Hamburg

Jan Nowak-Jezioranski

John H. Johnson

Eugene M. Lang

Antonia Pantoja

Rosa Parks

Ginetta Sagan

Representative Morris Udall

January 14, 1997

William J. Perry

January 17, 1997

Senator Robert Dole

September 30, 1997

General John Shalikashvili

January 15, 1998

Arnold Aronson

Brooke Astor

Robert Coles

Justin Dart Jr.

James Farmer

Frances Hesselbein

Fred Korematsu

Sol Linowitz

Wilma Mankiller

Margaret Murie

Mario Obledo

Elliot Richardson

David Rockefeller

Albert Shanker

Admiral Elmo "Bud" Zumwalt Jr.

October 29, 1998

Representative Dante Fascell

March 17, 1999

Senator George Mitchell

April 20, 1999

Helmut Kohl

August 9, 1999

President Jimmy Carter

Rosalynn Carter

August 11, 1999

Senator Lloyd Bentsen

Edgar Bronfman Sr.

Evy Dubrow

Sister M. Isolina Ferre

President Gerald Ford

Oliver W. Hill

Max Kampelman

Edgar Wayburn

August 9, 2000

James Edward Burke

Senator John H. Chafee

General Wesley K. Clark

Admiral William Crowe

Marian Wright Edelman

John Kenneth Galbraith

Monsignor George Higgins

Reverend Jesse Jackson

Millie Jeffrey

Dr. Mathilde Krim

Senator George McGovern

Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Cruz Reynoso

Reverend Gardner C. Taylor

Simon Wiesenthal

December 6, 2000

Aung San Suu Kyi