Upon handing out the last of the awards granted during Friday’s Presidential Medal of Freedom ceremony, President Joe Biden paused a moment as two honorees — former Cabinet secretary Elizabeth Dole and actor Michelle Yeoh — embraced in celebration.

It’s not clear if the two knew each other before that day. But Biden took the moment in, then strode to the lectern for his closing remarks.

"It makes you proud to be an American, doesn’t it?" he said, as attendees to the East Room ceremony applauded.

Friday marked the second time Biden awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor, during his presidency — the last time was in 2022. Nineteen people were given the award this year, in recognition of their "exemplary" contributions to American society, prosperity, security and values. These honorees, Biden said, were those "whose relentless curiosity, inventiveness, ingenuity and hope have kept faith in a better tomorrow."

Biden spared nothing but brevity as he introduced this year’s honorees, more than happy to talk about each of them at length.

"What I had to keep doing when I was writing these introductions is make them shorter and shorter and shorter — there’s so much more to say. But each one of them, we could be here for 12 hours," Biden said.

The president was generous to each of Friday’s medal recipients, though especially so with his friends and colleagues from Washington. Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi, he said, "is a brilliant, practical, principled, determined leader," who he said will be remembered as the greatest speaker of the House in American history. He honored the "steady hand and honest heart" of Rep. Jim Clyburn, D-S.C., and paid tribute to Clyburn’s late wife. 

He praised former Secretary of State John Kerry for his six decades of servce (and laughed as Kerry shrugged when an announcer noted that Kerry was one state away from winning the presidency in 2004). He celebrated former Vice President Al Gore for accepting the outcome of the disputed 2000 presidential election. ("That, to me, was amazing what you did, Al…but I won’t go into that," he said, alluding to Donald Trump’s attempt to hang onto the White House.)

While all recipients were moved by the honor, one of the most radiant smiles came from Opal Lee, the "grandmother of Juneteenth." A retired teacher and activist, Lee is best known for her campaign to have each year's June 19, the anniversary of the end of slavery in Texas, become the federal holiday known as Juneteenth. In 2021, after decades of work, she was present in the White House when Biden signed the holiday into law, receiving the first of the pens Biden used to sign the document.

"Miss Opal Lee made it our mission to make history, not erase it," Biden said. "We’re in a better nation because of you."

Honorees

• Michael R. Bloomberg, a former three-term mayor of New York, and founder of business media company and financial data company Bloomberg L.P.
• Gregory J. Boyle, a Jesuit Catholic priest and founder and director of Los Angeles-based Homeboy Industries, the world’s largest gang intervention and rehabilitation program.
• Rep. James E. Clyburn, a South Carolina congressman over three decades, the former assistant Democratic leader and majority whip of the House of Representatives.
• Sen. Elizabeth Dole, a secretary of Transportation in the Reagan administration, secretary of Labor under George H.W. Bush, and one-term U.S. senator from North Carolina, a trailblazer for women in American politics.
• Phil Donahue, a journalist and pioneer for daytime issue-oriented talk shows
• Al Gore, a former vice president, U.S. senator, member of the House of Representatives and Nobel Peace Prize laureate. Despite winning the popular vote in the 2000 presidential election, he accepted the outcome and conceded to George W. Bush.
• Clarence B. Jones, a civil rights activist and lawyer who helped to draft Martin Luther King Jr.’s "I Have a Dream" speech.
• John Forbes Kerry, a former secretary of State, U.S. senator and the first special presidential envoy for climate. During his Vietnam War-era military service, Kerry was awarded a Silver Star Medal, a Bronze Star with Valor and three Purple Hearts. Attempts to discredit his honors were later disproven.
• Katie Ledecky, the most-decorated female swimmer in history. Ledecky has won seven Olympic gold medals, six from individual events, and 21 world championship gold medals. She is expected to compete in the 2024 Paris Olympics.
• Opal Lee, an educator and activist known for her work to make Juneteenth a federally-recognized holiday — work that was realized in 2021.
• Ellen Ochoa, the first Hispanic woman in space and the second female director of NASA’s Johnson Space Center. Ochoa has flown in space four times and logged nearly 1,000 hours in orbit.
• Nancy Pelosi, the 52nd speaker of the House who has served in Congress for more than 36 years. Pelosi was the first woman to serve as speaker and the first to lead a major party in Congress.
• Jane Rigby, the senior scientist of the James Webb Space Telescope, the most powerful telescope in the world.
• Teresa Romero, the president of the United Farm Workers and first Latina to lead a national union in the United States.
• Judy Shepard, the co-founder of the Matthew Shepard Foundation. The organization was created in the honor of her son, who was murdered in one of America’s most notorious anti-gay hate crimes.
• Michelle Yeoh, the first Asian to win the Academy Award for Best Actress and a groundbreaking film star over a four-decade career.

Posthumous honorees

• Medgar Wiley Evers, a civil rights advocate and veteran of World War II who was killed in his home at age 37, by a segregationist. His wife, Myrlie Evers,  continued their shared fight to end racial desegregation.
• Frank R. Lautenberg, a five-term U.S. senator from New Jersey remembered for his work on environmental protection and consumer safety.
• Jim Thorpe, the first Native American to win an Olympic gold medal. Thorpe was the prototypical multi-sport athlete, playing professional football, baseball and basketball.