Washington (CNN)Hollywood legends, civil rights crusaders and the first African-American congresswoman were among those receiving the nation’s highest honor for civilians at the White House on Tuesday. “Innovators, artists and leaders who contribute to America’s strength as a nation”, said Obama.
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Yasui, who passed away in 1986, was arrested in Portland during World War II for defying the curfew against Japanese-Americans.
Berra and Mays will be the latest additions to the list of Medal of Freedom recipients who earned fame on the baseball diamond, and gained countless supporters off of it for their humanitarian and community work.
Yasui eventually spent nine months in solitary confinement, was stripped of his citizenship, disbarred and sent to an internment camp. “It is a call to our national conscience, a reminder of our enduring obligation to be the land of the free and the home of the courageous”. Gov. Kate Brown said in a statement that she is proud Yasui was honored with the medal.
Obama said that William Ruckelshaus, appointed the first administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency in 1970, “became known as Mr. Clean – and lived up to that nickname when he resigned from the Nixon administration rather than derail the Watergate investigation”.
Obama also presented the honor to NASA mathematician Katherine G. Johnson.
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Yasui died in 1986 and is buried in his hometown of Hood River. Fighting for freedom cost him dearly, including a wrongful incarceration and a criminal record that followed him like a dark cloud throughout his career. Oregon’s potential to thrive is compromised when any group of people face discrimination. “The more bipartisanship we have the more unified we are as a country and the stronger we are”.
