The nation’s highest civilian awards, the government’s Medal of Freedom, were presented by President Carter to Dr. Jonas E. Salk and posthumously to the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. on the occasion of the 201st anniversary of American independence. The award can be issued only by the President to persons who made especially meritorious contributions to the security or national interest of the U.S., to world peace or to cultural or other significant public or private endeavor.
Carter said of Dr. Salk, who discovered the anti-polio vaccine, that because of him “our country is free from the cruel epidemic of poliomyelitis that once struck almost yearly.” The President also observed that “because of his tireless work, untold hundreds of thousands who may have been crippled are sound in body today. These are Dr. Salk’s true honors and there is no way to add to them.” Of the late Dr. King, Carter said he was “the conscience of his generation,” adding, “a Southerner, a Black man, he gazed upon the great wall of segregation and saw the power of love could bring it down.”
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
