Lee Stockade Women Nominated for Presidential Medal of Freedom
Friday, June 3rd, 2016
Three members of the U.S. Congress submitted a letter to President Barack Obama in April nominating the Lee County Stockade Women for the 2016 Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Reps. Sanford Bishop, Hank Johnson Jr. and John Lewis, all from Georgia, nominated the women who — in the summer of 1963 — were imprisoned as young girls for their participation in the civil rights movement. In all, 15 girls ages 12-15 were confined in a stockade in Leesburg for two months under extremely poor conditions.
