US President Barack Obama congratulates actress Meryl Streep after presenting her with the Medal of Freedom during a ceremony in the East Room of the White House on Monday in Washington, DC. The Medal of Freedom is the country’s highest civilian honour.

DPA

Washington

 

An 18-time Oscar nominated actress, a blind musical legend and a Kennedy family matriarch were among the 19 notable recipients of the US’ highest civilian honour on Monday.

US President Barack Obama honoured Meryl Streep, Stevie Wonder and Ethel Kennedy with the Presidential Medal of Freedom at the White House.

“I love Meryl Streep. I love her,” Obama said, drawing laughter from an audience that included his wife, Michelle. “Her husband knows I love her. Michelle knows I love her. There’s nothing either of them can do about it.”

He said Streep had “done it all” for the craft of acting, and recounted the wide range of her roles.

“She’s sung ABBA ... She learned violin, wore a nun’s habit, faced down a charging lion, mastered every accent under the sun,” Obama said. “She inhabits her characters so fully and compassionately.”

The president described how Wonder’s album Talking Book was the first vinyl record he ever bought with his own pocket money at age 10 or 11.

“And I listened to that thing - that thing got so worn out,” Obama said. “It had all scratches. Young people, you won’t remember this, but you’d have albums and they’d get scratched.”

He said the singer’s “messages of hope and healing” had made him “one of the most influential musicians in American history.”

Also recognised for their contributions were author Isabel Allende, actress Marlo Thomas and journalist Tom Brokaw. Obama pointed out that Brokaw was the only US television news anchor reporting live from Berlin on the night that the wall dividing the city was opened, 25 years ago this month.

Posthumous honoree Patsy Takemoto Mink was Obama’s congresswoman during his youth in the 1970s in Hawaii. A Japanese-American, she was the first woman of non-European descent elected to Congress, where she co-authored legislation that banned sex discrimination in schools, part of which revolutionised organised girls’ sports.

“Every girl in Little League, every woman playing college sports and every parent, including Michelle and myself, who watches their daughter on a field or in the classroom, is forever grateful to the late Patsy Takemoto Mink,” Obama said.

Other honorees included physicist Mildred Dresselhaus, former congressman John Dingell, native American activist Suzan Harjo, former congressman and judge Abner Mikva, golfer Charles Sifford and economist Robert Solow.

The honour was given posthumously to choreographer Alvin Ailey, former congressman Edward Roybal and civil rights activists James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner, who were killed during the Freedom Summer voter registration drive of 1964.