Queen Latifah To Be Honored By Harvard With The W.E.B. Du Bois Medal

Source: Vivien Killilea / Getty

Queen Latifah Will Receive The W.E.B. Du Bois Medal

Actress and rapper Queen Latifah is one of the honorees being recognized by Harvard University this year for her contributions to black history and culture.

The Ivy Leavue University is set to award the W.E.B. Du Bois Medal to Queen Latifah–along with six other recipients–on October 22, according to reports from The Associated Press.

Along with the star will be other honorees, including poet and educator Elizabeth Alexander, Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution Lonnie Bunch III, poet Rita Dove, co-founder of Black Entertainment Television Sheila Johnson, artist Kerry James Marshall and Robert Smith, founder, chairman and chief executive of Vista Equity Partners.

This award is named after W.E.B. Du Bois, a scholar, writer, editor and civil rights pioneer who became the first black student to earn a doctorate from Harvard in 1895. Other entertainers to be honored in the past include Nas, Muhammad Ali, Dave Chappelle, LL Cool J, and Ava DuVernay.

Congrats to Queen Latifah on joining such an elite group of black excellence.