Williamsburg native Edward Leon Hudson, one of a group of the last Negro League baseball players, will be memorialized Saturday with a program at the Bruton Heights Education Center at 11 a.m.
Even though he lived most of his life in the Richmond area, Hudson remained “a dedicated member of the James City County Training/Berkeley Alumni Association with an unwavering commitment to preserving the history, legacy and spirit of our schools,” said William “Bill” Tose, the association’s president.
Hudson died July 22 at the age of 89. The family decided to hold the memorial service locally because of the number of friends and family in the area who would not be able to travel elsewhere for a service.
In his youth, Hudson graduated in 1954 from Bruton Heights School as a four-letter athlete — playing on the first team in football, basketball and baseball while also running track. Off the field, he was a member of the school’s choir, band and science club.
He won a scholarship to North Carolina Central College (now University) in 1954 and played sports there. He was known as “Magic-Eye’’ Hudson when he was quarterback and baseball player.
While in Durham, North Carolina, Hudson also played baseball for a local team. “They needed a catcher, so I caught,” he told the WRIC television station in Richmond in an interview eight years ago.
“We played against the Kansas City Monarchs (a Negro barnstorming team) that was coming through Durham,” he said in the interview. “Well, I had one of the better games in my life. They saw me and signed me up that night.”
Hudson was given a bus ticket for New York City and found himself in Yankee Stadium playing the Birmingham (Alabama) Black Barons baseball team. This was in 1957, and segregation was still abundant. “It was at a time,” he recalled, “when (Black players) were still trying to get into the major leagues as players, while Blacks were trying to get into ball parks as spectators.”
There were difficult times on the road playing baseball when he wasn’t in college. “Baseball was my test. My test was whether I was ready for the world,” he once said, saying his grandmother raised him. “I had respect and love for her. I would not do anything to make her look bad.”
With little integration, he found rejection at times when traveling in the South. “You couldn’t get into restaurants and often had to go to the back windows to get a hot dog. There were many nights on the bus when there were not hotels.”
Hudson stressed that then obstacles, the test “is of your strength and your determination. Either you fail or you pass; there is nothing in between. I’ve had a lot of tests.”
Barry Hudson, one of his sons who lives in the Washington, D.C., area, said his his father spent his adult professional life working for the Richmond Public Schools. Initially, he was in transportation and then became supervisor of transportation, and ended his career as a risk management specialist.
His father “had a gregarious personality and was always helping people with something they might needed,” Barry Hudson said. “He didn’t talk about baseball until he got older. He went to schools to talk about baseball and lessons he learned.”
At Saturday’s memorial, a resolution honoring Hudson will be presented citing him as a “model alumnus of North Carolina Central University (who) will always be remembered as a graduate with a sense of duty and pride, epitomizing our Alma Mater’s motto, ‘Truth and Service.’”
The resolution also notes that as a public servant of the Richmond Public Schools, Hudson “was a mentor, encourager, motivator, friend and confident known for championing academic excellence.”
The Bruton Heights Education Center is located at 301 First St. in Williamsburg.
Wilford Kale, kalehouse@aol.com
