President Obama has awarded 15 people with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor. Recipients include Democratic Congress member and civil rights activist John Lewis, the poet Maya Angelou, the cellist Yo-Yo Ma, and former President George H.W. Bush.

President Obama: “When you look at the men and women who are here today, it says something about who we are as a people. When we award this medal to a Congressman John Lewis, it says that we aspire to be a more just, more equal, more perfect union. When we award it to a Jasper Johns, it says we value the original and the imaginative. When we award it to a Warren Buffett, it says we’d all like to be so humble and wise and maybe make a little money along the way. And when we award it to former President George H.W. Bush, it says we celebrate an extraordinary life of service and of sacrifice.”