WASHINGTON D.C. — President Joe Biden awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom to 19 recipients on Friday, May 3, and among them was LGBTQ+ rights advocate Judy Shepard of Cheyenne, WY.
Shepard stepped into the national spotlight in 1998 when her son Matthew was killed in an anti-gay hate crime in Laramie, WY. After Matthew’s death, Shepard and her husband started the Matthew Shepard Foundation, which, according to its mission statement, inspires individuals to “embrace the dignity and equality of all people.”
In Biden’s announcement of the recipients, he called Matthew’s death “one of the nation’s most notorious anti-gay hate crimes,” adding that Shepard’s “work has driven tremendous progress in our fight to give hate no safe harbor.”
The Presidential Medal of Freedom is the highest honor an American civilian can receive. This year, the medal also went to: Michael Bloomberg, Father Greg Boyle, Jim Clyburn, Elizabeth Dole, Phil Donahue, Medgar Evers (posthumously), Al Gore, Clarence B. Jones, John Kerry, Frank Lautenberg (posthumously), Katie Ledecky, Opal Lee, Ellen Ochoa, Nancy Pelosi, Jane Rigby, Teresa Romero, Jim Thorpe (posthumously) and Michelle Yeoh.
See Shepard receive the medal around the 47-minute mark in this MSNBC broadcast of the ceremony.
