Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
News

Gabrielle Giffords To Receive ‘Profile In Courage’ Award

Former Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords is set to receive the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award for her efforts to curb gun violence since she was seriously wounded in a Tucson shooting rampage two years ago.

Gifffords is to receive the award, given annually by the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation, in recognition of the “political, personal, and physical courage she has demonstrated in her fearless public advocacy for policy reforms aimed at reducing gun violence,” the foundation announced on Friday.

The award, named for President Kennedy’s 1957 Pulitzer Prize-winning book “Profiles in Courage,” is to be presented to Giffords by foundation president Caroline Kennedy at a ceremony in Boston on May 5.

Giffords, a Democrat, was shot in the head when a gunman opened fire on a congressional outreach event in Tucson in January 2011, killing six people and wounding a dozen others. She resigned from Congress a year after the shooting to focus on her recovery.

Following the attack that killed 26 people at a Connecticut elementary school in December, Giffords and her husband, former astronaut Mark Kelly, founded a lobby group aimed at curbing gun violence and challenging the political clout of the well-funded gun lobby.

“Instead of retreating following the tragic shooting that ended her Congressional career, she has recommitted herself to fighting for a more peaceful society free from hate and violence. She is a true Profile in Courage,” Caroline Kennedy said in a statement released by the foundation.

In a Tweet on Friday, Giffords thanked both Caroline Kennedy and the foundation: “Wow! So proud about the Profile in Courage Award. President Kennedy’s book is a favorite of mine.” (Reporting by Tim Gaynor; Editing by Cynthia Johnston, Gary Hill)

The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.

Readers like you make it all possible. We’ve started our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we need 1,800 readers like you to step up to support the Forward by April 21. Members of the Forward board are even matching the first 1,000 gifts, up to $70,000.

This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism, because every dollar goes twice as far.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

2X match on all Passover gifts!

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:

  • Credit the Forward
  • Retain our pixel
  • Preserve our canonical link in Google search
  • Add a noindex tag in Google search

See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.