1982
Citation:
Anthony Lewis, a twice-weekly New York Times columnist, has spent his lifetime writing and, through that writing, exploring complex issues facing American society. He has received journalism’s highest honor, the Pulitzer Prize, twice for his work. In 1955, he was honored for a newspaper series written on the dismissal of a Navy employee as a security risk. The employee was reinstated as a result of the series and the articles used as the basis for the movie, “Three Brave Men.” In 1963 he was honored again for his coverage of the Supreme Court. Graduating from Harvard University in 1948, he returned there as a Nieman fellow in 1956, specializing in the study of law. His first book, Gideon’s Trumpet, detailed the landmark Supreme Court decision which ruled defendants have the right to a court-appointed attorney even if they cannot afford one and his second, Portrait of a Decade: The Second American Revolution, looked at the changes in American race relations.
Award was presented at the President's Cabinet Fifteenth Annual Awards Dinner, May 7, 1982.