{"id":44209,"date":"2015-11-26T01:52:33","date_gmt":"2015-11-26T01:52:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=44209"},"modified":"2015-11-26T02:46:04","modified_gmt":"2015-11-26T02:46:04","slug":"president-obama-names-recipients-of-the-presidential-medal-of-freedom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=44209","title":{"rendered":"President Obama Names Recipients of the Presidential Medal of Freedom"},"content":{"rendered":"

President Obama Names Recipients of the Presidential Medal of Freedom<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Office of the Press Secretary<\/a>
\nThe White House<\/a>
\nWashington, D.C.<\/p>\n

2015-11-16<\/p>\n

WASHINGTON, DC<\/a> \u2013 Today, President Barack Obama<\/a> named seventeen recipients of the Presidential Medal of Freedom<\/a>. The Presidential Medal of Freedom is the Nation\u2019s highest civilian honor, presented to individuals who have made especially meritorious contributions to the security or national interests of the United States, to world peace, or to cultural or other significant public or private endeavors. The awards will be presented at the White House on November 24th.<\/p>\n

President Obama said, \u201cI look forward to presenting these 17 distinguished Americans with our nation\u2019s highest civilian honor. From public servants who helped us meet defining challenges of our time to artists who expanded our imaginations, from leaders who have made our union more perfect to athletes who have inspired millions of fans, these men and women have enriched our lives and helped define our shared experience as Americans.\u201d<\/p>\n

The following individuals will be awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom:…<\/p>\n

Katherine G. Johnson<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Katherine G. Johnson is a pioneer in American space history. A NASA<\/a> mathematician, Johnson’s computations have influenced every major space program from Mercury<\/a> through the Shuttle program<\/a>. Johnson was hired as a research mathematician at the Langley Research Center <\/a>with the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics<\/a> (NACA), the agency that preceded NASA, after they opened hiring to African-Americans and women. Johnson exhibited exceptional technical leadership and is known especially for her calculations of the 1961 trajectory for Alan Shepard\u2019s<\/a> flight (first American in space), the 1962 verification of the first flight calculation made by an electronic computer for John Glenn\u2019s<\/a> orbit (first American to orbit the earth), and the 1969 Apollo 11<\/a> trajectory to the moon. In her later NASA career, Johnson worked on the Space Shuttle program and the Earth Resources Satellite and encouraged students to pursue careers in science and technology fields…<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a>
\n Image of Katherine Johnson at NASA Langley Research Center in 1980. (Source: NASA)<\/small><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

Read the entire press release here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

President Obama Names Recipients of the Presidential Medal of Freedom Office of the Press Secretary The White House Washington, D.C. 2015-11-16 WASHINGTON, DC \u2013 Today, President Barack Obama named seventeen recipients of the Presidential Medal of Freedom. The Presidential Medal of Freedom is the Nation\u2019s highest civilian honor, presented to individuals who have made especially […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,63,1245,459,8,20,25],"tags":[19570,22016,19571,22027,22026,19572,19573,22025,15253],"class_list":["post-44209","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-barack-obama","category-biography","category-history","category-media-archive","category-usa","category-women","tag-katherine-coleman-goble-johnson","tag-katherine-g-johnson","tag-katherine-johnson","tag-langley-research-center","tag-naca","tag-nasa","tag-national-aeronautics-and-space-administration","tag-presidential-medal-of-freedom","tag-the-white-house"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44209","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=44209"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44209\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44215,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44209\/revisions\/44215"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=44209"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=44209"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=44209"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}