Here's one honor Meryl Streep has never been accused of hogging: President Obama is awarding the multiple Oscar-winning actress, a Summit native, with the Presidential Medal of Freedom. <\/p>\n
Obama today named the 19 recipients of the nation's highest civilian honor and will present the awards at the White House on Nov. 24. Streep, who graduated from Bernards High School, holds the record for the most Oscar nominations in history, 18, and has won three times, most recently in 2012 for \"The Iron Lady.\" <\/p>\n
The 2014 class includes fellow cultural treasures, including influential Broadway composer Stephen Sondheim (Streep is starring in the upcoming film adaptation of Sondheim's \"Into the Woods\"), actress, author and social activist Marlo Thomas, and soulful singer, songwriter and musician Stevie Wonder. A posthumous award will be given to choreographer Alvin Ailey. <\/p>\n
Included in the roll of those 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\" are: writer Isabel Allende; newsman Tom Brokaw; physicist Mildred Dresselhaus; legislator John Dingell, the longest-serving Congressman in American history; human rights and environmental activist Ethel Kennedy; Native American writer and activist Suzan Harjo; and Abner Mikva, a former Congressman and chief judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. <\/p>\n
Also: Patsy Takemoto Mink, a Hawai'ian congresswoman, the first woman of color elected to Congress, and a co-author of Title IX; Edward Roybal, the first Mexican-American to be elected to the U.S. House of Representatives from California in nearly a century; professional golfer Charles Sifford, who helped desegregate the PGA; economist and Nobel laureate Robert Solow; and James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner, the Freedom Riders who were killed in Mississippi in 1964 for attempting to register African-American voters. <\/p>\n
Vicki Hyman may be reached at vhyman@njadvancemedia.com<\/a>. Follow her on Twitter @vickihy. Find NJ.com\/Entertainment on Facebook. <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Read the original post: <\/p>\n N.J.'s Meryl Streep to receive Presidential Medal of Freedom<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Here's one honor Meryl Streep has never been accused of hogging: President Obama is awarding the multiple Oscar-winning actress, a Summit native, with the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Continue reading