Marion Hudson, A Freedom Fighter on the Long Road to Equality

Dana College in Blair, Neb. closed its doors this month. A chapter in the school’s history concerns a mythic-like figure named Marion Hudson, a gifted, multi-sport athlete who left his mark there. When all white Dana sought to integrate its campus, school officials were referred to Hudson. Students raised the money to pay his tuition, books, and boarding. He went and made an impact as a student-athlete. His athletic exploits read like fiction, but were quite real.  

You’ve never heard of him as he never tried out for the Olympics and never turned pro, levels of competition many felt he was capable of. His later life was sad. Beset by health problems, his body failed him. When I met him at the nursing home he resided in he was a shell of his former self, but retained a fighting spirit and sense of humor. He’s since passed. He was in a vanguard of those who integrated institutions, organizations, places. The civil rights movement didn't begin and end with Jackie Robinson or Rosa Parks or Martin Luther King, but was a generations-long tapestry of individuals and groups who, step by step, crumbled the walls of segregation.  

I'm a journalist who writes about people and their passions and their magnificent obsessions. My work reflects a social consciousness. I wrote about Hudson for my series on Omaha’s Black Sports Legends - Out to Win: The Roots of Greatness (The Reader, www.thereader.com). Dana College and Marion Hudson are gone now, but they leave behind a rich legacy. My story is a small tribute to them. Read the story on my blog - leoadambiga.wordpress.com. It's the lead feature on my home page. Other stories there related to the civil rights-social justice tapestry are: Bertha's Battle; A Contrary Path to Social Justice; The Tuskegee Airmen; UNO Wrestling Dynasty Built on a Tide of Social Change; Omaha's Sweet Sixteen; Goodwin's Spencer Street Barbershop. These stories suggest the freedom movement was more diffuse than the condensed view we often get. The movement's never really gone away. The struggle continues.