Cicely Tyson, Diana Ross & Other Black Women Who’ve Received Presidential Medals Of Freedom
Marian Anderson
Anderson, who lived nearly 100 years, (She was 96 when she died.) was presented her roses, while she was still here to smell them. In 1963, the first year the medals were awarded, President Lyndon B. Johnson awarded the famed operatic singer with the award for her contribution to the arts. In 1978 she received a Kennedy Honor, a National Medal of Arts in 1986 and a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, two years before she passed in 1993.