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November 11, 2014

Slain Civil Rights Activists Among Winners of Presidential Medal of Freedom 
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Three civil rights activists murdered by the Ku Klux Klan in 1964 after
traveling to Mississippi to register black voters have been posthumously
awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian
honor. The murders of James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner
shocked the country and propelled the passage of the Voting Rights Act
in 1965. Other recipients of this year's Medal of Freedom include
Chilean novelist Isabel Allende, Native American activist Suzan Harjo,
and the actress and activist Marlo Thomas.

 

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