President Joe Biden recently presented 19 people with the Presidential Medal of Freedom. One of the 19 recipients of the Medal of Freedom stood out to us as particularly noteworthy.

Medgar Evers truly served his country — first in the U.S. Army, serving in combat during World War II, then as a civil rights activist, leading demonstrations and organizing voter-registration drives, among other acts of service.

In the 1950s, Evers applied to law school at the University of Mississippi to challenge its discriminatory practices, Brigit Katz, writing for Smithsonian magazine, notes.

“When he and his friends tried to vote in a local election, for instance, they were driven away at gunpoint,” Katz wrote.

He knew the work he did was dangerous, but too important to neglect.

Medgar Evers sacrificed his life to that danger in June of 1963, when he was murdered while returning from a meeting of civil rights activists to his home in Jackson, Mississippi, by a segregationist.

“This is a powerful way to honor Medgar Evers’ life and legacy,” U.S. Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., said in a statement posted to the senator’s website. “The fact that he is receiving this award 60 years after his death is proof that he has inspired the generations that followed. His work did not die with him in 1963.”

Medgar Evers’ willingness to confront and correct injustice, even at risk to his own life, is admirable and should be respected and honored for generations to come. Medgar Evers is an exceedingly appropriate choice for a posthumous Presidential Medal of Honor. We hope all Americans to come together in agreement about his laudable contributions to improving America’s course through history.