He attended Tillatson College in Austin, Texas on a baseball scholarship and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology in 1951.

[1] The Reading Eagle newspaper reports on the 27th July 1952 that Pearson played for the 1952 New York Black Yankees of the Negro National League.

[2] He was featured on the cover of JET magazine on April 20, 1964, with the headline "Former Baseball Star Leads Jacksonville Civil Rights Struggle."

The article states that he was very influential in recruiting members of the NAACP; citing that in just two years he was able to drive membership from a few hundred to over 2,000.

He was also noted for his ability to influence the youth of Jacksonville enough to calm some of the violence surrounding the civil rights clashes that took place in the city in the 1960s.