Queen Latifah receives Harvard black culture award

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (AP) — Music artist and actress Queen Latifah was among the honorees recognized by Harvard University for their contributions to black history and culture.

Harvard awarded the W.E.B. Du Bois Medal to Queen Latifah and six other recipients on Tuesday, according to the Cambridge, Massachusetts, school’s Hutchins Center for African and African American Research.

Other honorees include 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.

The award is named after Du Bois, a scholar, writer, editor, and civil rights pioneer who became the first black student to earn a doctorate from Harvard in 1895.