"Today we celebrate some extraordinary people: innovators, artists and leaders who contribute to America's strength as a nation," Obama said.
Obama presented the Presidential Medal of Freedom to filmmaker Steven Spielberg, musicians Gloria and Emilio Estefan, singer James Taylor, composer Stephen Sondheim, violinist Itzhak Perlman and actress Barbra Streisand, who won an Academy award for her performance in the classic film musical, "Funny Girl."
Mays, a centerfielder for the New York and San Francisco Giants, was among the first African-American players in Major League Baseball.
"It's because of giants like Willie that someone like me could even think about running for president," Obama said.
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Posthumous recipients included Japanese-American civil rights leader Minoru Yasui, who challenged the constitutionality of a military curfew order during World War II on the grounds of racial discrimination and spent months in solitary confinement during the legal battle, and Indian tribal advocate Billy Frank Jr., who led "fish-ins" similar to sit-ins during the tribal "fish wars" of the 1960s and 1970s.
Chisholm was the first African-American woman elected to Congress and a founding member of what would become the Congressional Black Caucus.