Nearly 50 years after he sounded “Chimes of Freedom” on one of his earliest folk-rock albums, Bob Dylan, the mercurial pop troubadour, will be rewarded with a Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor given by the United States, alongside such noteworthy figures as Toni Morrison, Madeleine Albright, John Glenn and John Paul Stevens.
The White House said in a statement that President Obama had named 13 recipients of the medal, which is granted 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.”
Mr. Dylan, a former winner of the National Medal of Arts, was praised in the White House’s statement as being among “the most influential American musicians of the 20th century,” for “his rich and poetic lyrics” and for work that has “had considerable influence on the civil rights movement of the 1960s and has had significant impact on American culture over the past five decade.”
In honoring Ms. Morrison, the Pulitzer and Nobel Prize-winning novelist of “Beloved” and “Song of Solomon,” the White House revisited her Nobel citation, which called her an author “who in novels characterized by visionary force and poetic import, gives life to an essential aspect of American reality.”
The other recipients of the medal, who will be honored at a White House ceremony later in the spring, are John Doar, the civil rights lawyer; Dr. William Foege, the epidemiologist; Dolores Huerta, an activist for civil rights, women and laborers; Shimon Peres, the president of Israel; and Pat Summitt, the former head coach of the women’s basketball team at the University of Tennessee.
Medals will also be awarded posthumously to Gordon Hirabayashi, a Japanese-American who fought his internment in the United States during World War II; Jan Karski, a World War II Polish resistance fighter; and Juliette Gordon Low, founder of the Girl Scouts.
This post has been revised to reflect the following correction:
Correction: April 27, 2012
An earlier version of this post referred incorrectly to Shimon Peres. He is the current president of Israel — not a former president. (He is a former prime minister.)
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