Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611

  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
O. N. Pruitt's Possum Town: Photographing Trouble and Resilience in the American South

O. N. Pruitt's Possum Town: Photographing Trouble and Resilience in the American South

Hudson, Berkley
Rankin, Tom

Hardcover

Series: Documentary Arts and Culture, Published in Association with

General PhotographyGeneral Racism & Ethnic StudiesRegional: South

ISBN10: 1469662701
ISBN13: 9781469662701
Publisher: University of North Carolina Press
Published: Jan 18 2022
Pages: 272
Weight: 3.40
Height: 1.00 Width: 9.20 Depth: 10.30
Language: English
Photographer O. N. Pruitt (1891-1967) was for some forty years the de facto documentarian of Lowndes County, Mississippi, and its county seat, Columbus -- known to locals as Possum Town. His body of work recalls many FSA photographers, but Pruitt was not an outsider with an agenda; he was a community member with intimate knowledge of the town and its residents. He photographed his fellow white citizens and Black ones as well, in circumstances ranging from the mundane to the horrific: family picnics, parades, river baptisms, carnivals, fires, funerals, two of Mississippi's last public and legal executions by hanging, and a lynching. From formal portraits to candid images of events in the moment, Pruitt's documentary of a specific yet representative southern town offers viewers today an invitation to meditate on the interrelations of photography, community, race, and historical memory.

Columbus native Berkley Hudson was photographed by Pruitt, and for more than three decades he has considered and curated Pruitt's expansive archive, both as a scholar of media and visual journalism and as a community member. This stunning book presents Pruitt's photography as never before, combining more than 190 images with a biographical introduction and Hudson's short essays and reflective captions on subjects such as religion, ethnic identity, the ordinary graces of everyday life, and the exercise of brutal power.

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