Berkley Hudson discusses “O.N. Pruitt’s Possum Town: Photographing Trouble and Resilience in the American South” at Flyleaf Books

Watch the archived presentation given by Berkeley Hudson on his recently released book published in partnership between Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University and UNC Press, O.N. Pruitt’s Possum Town: Photographing Trouble and Resilience in the American South, held on March 31st, 2022 at Chapel Hill, North Carolina’s Flyleaf Books.

The New York Times Book Review proclaimed that “O.N. Pruitt’s Possum Town captures the soul—and soullessness—of a Mississippi town in the first half of the 20th century. . . . With ethnographic rigor and the intimacy of a local, Pruitt’s eye roves matter-of-factly between scenes of gilded refinement—the crafted splendor of privilege—and the gruesome violence that makes that privilege possible.”

Berkley Hudson, who was photographed as a child by Pruitt, is emeritus associate professor of media history at the Missouri School of Journalism of the University of Missouri.