History Is Lunch: Berkley Hudson, “Pruitt’s Historic Columbus Photographs”

Mon
Tue
Wed
Thu
Fri
Sat
Sun
M
T
W
T
F
S
S
28
1
4
5
6
12
7:00 PM - Blue Monday
19
21
23
10:00 PM - The Stolen Faces
26
28
10:30 AM - Art in Mind
1
Events on Tue, Jun 29
Events on Wed, Jun 30
Events on Fri, Jul 2
Events on Sat, Jul 3
TrapChella
3 Jul 21
Jackson
Dexter Allen
3 Jul 21
Jackson
Events on Fri, Jul 9
Events on Sat, Jul 10
Events on Sun, Jul 11
Events on Mon, Jul 12
Blue Monday
12 Jul 21
Jackson
Events on Tue, Jul 13
Events on Thu, Jul 15
Zechariah Lloyd at Hal & Mal's
15 Jul 21
Jackson
Events on Fri, Jul 16
Events on Sat, Jul 17
Sherman Lee Dillon
17 Jul 21
Jackson
Events on Sun, Jul 18
Sunday Summer RockFest 2021
18 Jul 21
Jackson
Events on Tue, Jul 20
Events on Thu, Jul 22
Events on Fri, Jul 23
The Stolen Faces
23 Jul 21
Jackson
Ben Sterling at FJC!
23 Jul 21
Jackson
Events on Sat, Jul 24
Events on Sun, Jul 25
Events on Tue, Jul 27
Blacktop Mojo at Hal & Mal's
27 Jul 21
Jackson
Downtown Blood Drive
27 Jul 21
Jackson
Events on Wed, Jul 28
Art in Mind
28 Jul 21
Events on Thu, Jul 29
Events on Fri, Jul 30
Mr. Sipp at FJC
30 Jul 21
Jackson
Two Mississippi Museums | 222 North Street, Jackson, Mississippi, 39201| Website

Event Details

  • Date(s): Wed, Jan 19
  • Time: 12:00 pm
  • Location: Two Mississippi Museums, 222 North Street, Jackson, Mississippi, 39201

Other Information

Join the Mississippi Department of Archives & History on site at the Two Mississippi Museums at noon on Wednesday, January 19, for History Is Lunch, or watch the livestream on Facebook, when Berkley Hudson will present “Pruitt’s Historic Columbus Photographs.”
Hudson is the author of the new book O.N. Pruitt’s Possum Town: Photographing Trouble and Resilience in the American South. Otis Noel Pruitt (1891–1967) was for some forty years the de facto documentarian of Lowndes County and Columbus–known to locals as “Possum Town.” His body of work recalls many Farm Security Administration photographers, but Pruitt was not an outsider with an agenda; he was a community member with intimate knowledge of the town and its residents.
Pruitt 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,” said Hudson.
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. Hudson’s book presents Pruitt’s photography as never before, combining more than 190 images with a biographical introduction and Hudson’s short essays.
Breach of Peach author Eric Etheridge wrote: “Knockout images from a remarkable archive. Otis Noel Pruitt photographed his slice of Mississippi head on, omnivorously, leaving behind an encyclopedic record of Southern life in the early to mid-20th century. Look closely at these pictures. Embedded in their details are clues not only to a world long gone but the present moment as well.”
History Is Lunch is sponsored by the John and Lucy Shackelford Charitable Fund of the Community Foundation for Mississippi. The weekly lecture series of the Mississippi Department of Archives and History explores different aspects of the state’s past. The hour-long programs are held in the Craig H. Neilsen Auditorium of the Museum of Mississippi History and Mississippi Civil Rights Museum building at 222 North Street in Jackson. MDAH livestreams videos of the program at noon on Wednesdays on their Facebook page, and the videos are posted on the department’s YouTube channel.
Loading Map....