Black Doc Awarded Medal of Freedom

President Bush on Thursday presented the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian award, to leaders in medicine, government, the judiciary and the military.

Bush talked about Dr. Benjamin S. Carson's mother. Carson performed the world's first successful operation separating twins joined at the back of the head in 1987.

Carson's mother raised him and his brother alone.

"Every week the boys would have to check out library books and write reports on them," Bush said of Carson's mother. "She would hand them back with check marks as though she had reviewed them, never letting on that she couldn't read."

Carson is director of pediatric neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins Children's Center in Baltimore.

Cuba Gooding, Jr. attended the ceremony for the 2008 recipients. He will portray Carson in an upcoming movie. source