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September 14, 1964 – Walt Disney is Awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom

Image Credit: michaelbarrier.com

“The Medal may be awarded…to any person who has made an especially meritorious contribution to (1), the security or national interests of the United States, or (2) world peace, or (3) cultural or other significant public or private endeavors.”

On September 14, 1964, Walt Disney was presented the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Lyndon B. Johnson. The award is the highest civilian award in the United States, although not limited to American citizens, and is bestowed by the President himself. Disney was recognized as a pioneer in the animated movie cartoon field. He received the award alongside Dean Acheson (former Secretary of State), Detlev W. Bronk (neurophysiologist), Aaron Copland (composer), Willem de Kooning (painter), J. Frank Dobie (writer), Lena F. Edwards (physician and humanitarian), Thomas Stearns Eliot (Nobel prize winning author), John W. Gardner (president of the Carnegie Foundation for Advancement of Teaching), Reverend Theodore M. Hesburgh, Clarence L. Johnson (aircraft engineer), Frederick R. Kappel (AT&T Chairman), Helen Keller, John L. Lewis (former president of the United Mine Workers), Walter Lippmann (journalist), Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne (actors), Ralph Emerson McGill (publisher), Samuel Eliot Morison (sailor and historian), Lewis Mumford (author), Edward R. Murrow (radio and television reporter), Reinhold Niebuhr (theologian), Leontyne Price (opera singer), A. Philip Randolph (leader in the Civil Rights movement), Carl Sandburg (Pulitzer Prize-winning poet), John Steinbeck (Nobel Prize-winning author), Helen B. Taussig (professor of pediatrics), Carl Vinson (former chairman of the House and Armed Services Committee), Thomas J. Watson, Jr. (Chairman of the Board of IBM), and Paul Dudley White (physician).