Army Sgt. Henry Johnson is closer to being awarded a posthumous Medal of Honor.

Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel recommended the African-American World War I hero from Albany for the award, according to Sen. Chuck Schumer.

A lengthy campaign to award Johnson the nation's highest military honor has been waged by relatives, black veterans, an online petition and an aggressive push by Schumer.

Final approval would be made by President Barack Obama. However, the Senate must first pass legislation allowing Johnson's case to be considered. Current law only allows Medals of Honor to be awarded within five years of the date of the act of heroism.

Schumer said he will introduce legislation exempting Johnson's case from the limitation.

On May 15, 1918, Johnson, then a private, was serving as a sentry when he helped repel a 20-soldier German unit, despite being seriously wounded and armed only with a knife and a jammed rifle he swung as a club. Historians have taken to referring to it as the "Battle of Henry Johnson."

He overcame discrimination and died destitute, his battlefield valor long forgotten, on July 5, 1929, at the Veterans Hospital in New Lenox, Ill. He was estranged from his family and was buried years later at Arlington National Cemetery.

Johnson previously received the Croix de Guerre with Gold Palm, one of the French military's highest honors. In 2003, he was posthumously awarded the Distinguished Service Cross, the Army's second-highest award.

Johnson was a member of the 369th Infantry Regiment, based in Harlem. The unit, known as the "Harlem Hellfighters," was one of the only black combat units in World War I and it fought with distinction under French command in an era of racial segregation in the U.S. Army.

Veterans of the 369th joined local black Army veterans in a drive to win Johnson the Medal of Honor. The effort was led for many years by John Howe, of Albany, a black Vietnam War veteran who died in 2005.

To date, 3,487 Medals of Honor have been awarded since the Civil War, including 621 posthumously.