COLUMBIA, S.C. - The widow of a man who fought to desegregate South Carolina public schools says her husband would know America appreciates his efforts if he could accept the Congressional Gold Medal that will be awarded Wednesday at the U.S. Capitol.

Viola Pearson, 93, and her stepson will accept the highest civilian award bestowed by the president and Congress on behalf of her late husband, Levi Pearson.

"It's like a dream. I can't believe it's really happening," Viola Pearson said.

"He would know that America appreciates what he did," if he could accept the award, she said.

Many people still don't recognize the role that South Carolinians played in desegregating the nation's schools, said Ferdinand Pearson, the 81-year-old son of Levi Pearson.

"I feel the medal ceremony will help remedy that," Ferdinand Pearson said. "And the 50th anniversary ceremonies (commemorating the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court decision) helped to remedy that. It got quite a bit of attention."

Pearson, who died in 1970, filed a lawsuit in Clarendon County in 1947 requesting a separate school bus for black children to spare them a nine-mile walk to school. The lawsuit was thrown out on a technicality but led to the filing of Briggs v. Elliott, one of five leading cases that formed the Brown case.

The Congressional Gold Medal will be posthumously awarded to Pearson and three others - Harry and Eliza Briggs and the Rev. Joseph A. DeLaine, who helped file Briggs v. Elliott.

---

Information from: The State, http://www.thestate.com/