The current Speaker of the House will be honored at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Boston next month. Nancy Pelosi will receive the Profile in Courage Award for helping to pass the Affordable Care Act (ACA), according to the organization. She will also be honored for work she did leading up to the 2018 midterms.
“Speaker Pelosi leads with strength, integrity and grace under pressure — using her power to protect the most vulnerable of our citizens,” Caroline Kennedy, honorary president of the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation, said in a press release. “She is the most important woman in American political history and is a true Profile in Courage.”
The library announcement detailed Pelosi's fight to help pass the ACA, which the organization described as "the most significant expansion of health care access since the implementation of Medicare and Medicaid nearly half a century before." She did this, the press release read, in the face of "negative political attacks from" the Republican party, which opposed implementing the ACA.
"It is a great personal and official honor to receive the Profile in Courage Award, which stands as a powerful testament to the extraordinary legacy and leadership of President Kennedy,” Pelosi said in a press release. She said that it is her "hope that my receiving this award will encourage others to pursue public service, and lead with courage, conviction and conscience."
The announcement specifically highlighted Pelosi's perseverance after losing the Democratic majority in the House back in November 2010. Because Republicans took over control, she lost her spot as Speaker of the House. But, the announcement read, Pelosi stayed devoted to pushing the Democratic Party forward.
"Despite facing opposition, Pelosi Illustrated her persistence and determination, as she set out to rebuild the Democratic Party in the image of America," the library said in a press release. One of her crowning achievements, the library wrote, was that she worked to help elect what has been termed "the most diverse Congress in U.S. history" during the 2018 November midterms.
“She is the most important woman in American political history and is a true Profile in Courage," Kennedy said.
Pelosi has served in the House since 1987, according to the Associated Press. In 2007, she became the first woman to ever be Speaker of the House.
"It is an historic moment for the Congress, and an historic moment for the women of this country," Pelosi said at the time, according the San Francisco Chronicle. "It is a moment for which we have waited over 200 years. Never losing faith, we waited through the many years of struggle to achieve our rights. But women weren't just waiting; women were working."
Pelosi has received renewed attention in recent months for, among other things, her leadership in opposing President Donald Trump's efforts to build a new wall on the U.S.-Mexico border. Her pushback against many of the Trump administration's policy initiatives has, at times, even become fodder for memes. There's no denying that she is a key player for congressional Democrats, and her receiving the Profile in Courage award only proves to demonstrate that even further.
