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04/11/2005
President George W. Bush announced the winners of the Medal of Freedom, the United States' government's highest award for civilians. Among the 19 winners was Muhammad Ali, a 1960 Olympic gold medallist and three-time heavyweight world champion in the pre-alphabet soup days. The award shows that time heals many wounds, as many Americans villified Ali a traitor back in the late 1960s when he refused to serve in the Viet Nam war, a stance that has been vindicated over the years. Other winners included Frank Robinson, who was major league baseball's first black manager, Aretha Franklin perhaps the greatest American singer of the last half century, Vinton Cerf and Robert Kahn, two computer scientists who helped develop the Internet and, surprisingly, mildly amusing actor Andy Griffith. -Scott Shaffer
