Nas, Muhammad Ali and Eric Holder Receive Harvard’s W.E.B. Du Bois Medal

Every year, Harvard University honors those who have made contributions to African-American culture with the W.E.B. Du Bois Medal.

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On Wednesday, awarded for their contributions were rapper Nas; former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder; boxing great Muhammad Ali; Marian Wright Edelman of the Children’s Defense Fund; Mellody Hobson, president of Ariel Investments; artist Carrie Mae Weems; and journalist Charlayne Hunter-Gault, the first black woman to enroll at the University of Georgia.

According to Boston magazine, this isn’t the first time Nas has been recognized by Harvard. Two years ago, Harvard’s W.E.B. Du Bois Research Institute and Hiphop Archive & Research Institute jointly established the Nasir Jones Hiphop Fellowship in recognition of his music career. The recipients of the fellowship are those who “demonstrate exceptional capacity for productive scholarship and exceptional creative ability in the arts, in connection with hip-hop.”