Building For Tomorrow: E.C. Morris, Centennial Church and the Black Baptists During Jim Crow

This extraordinary new exhibition explores the role of the Baptist Church in the lives of African Americans during the turbulent period of Jim Crow, as they navigated the difficulties and hardships of a segregated country.  Visitors, as they enter the South Gallery of the Delta Cultural Center, will first notice the large replica stain glass window that symbolizes the church. It is if they have been reborn in the past and are looking into this window to see what is happening in a church of that era. From that point, guests will be able to read and study numerous historical panels that depict the expansion of the Baptist Church throughout the Arkansas Delta and into the lives of African Americans. 

Activists such as Booker T. Washington and others used this religious awakening to further the cause of reform, but it was through the tireless labor of one Arkansan that the church rose to new levels of importance. That Arkansan was the Reverend Elias Camp Morris, who rose to national prominence through his work with the National Baptist Convention. In addition to his work in politics, Morris was the pastor at Centennial Baptist Church in Helena, Arkansas from 1879 to his death in 1922. Centennial was an example of an early megachurch with nearly a thousand members and was a beacon of light for all African Americans in the area. E.C. Morris was also president of the Black Arkansas Baptist State Convention for 35 years and helped start a seminary in Little Rock that eventually became Arkansas Baptist College.  There is a life size replica of Morris at his podium and interactive displays which feature a number of his speeches that visitors may listen to. In addition to the church, there are also displays and information panels dealing with the role of fraternal organizations like the Knights of Pythias and the Masons.

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

The Delta Cultural Center will host "Mr. Pruitt's Possum Town: Photographing Trouble and Resilience in the American South", in the center gallery at 141 Cherry Street in Helena-West Helena, Arkansas. The exhibit will open with a reception on Friday, July 26, from 5:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. In addition to food and fellowship, our guest speaker will be educator and author Berkley Hudson, Associate Professor Emeritus at the University of Missouri. The event is free and open to the public. 

This photographic exhibit, consisting of nearly 100 photographic prints, reveals life between 1915 to 1960 in Columbus, Mississippi. Built around the collection of photographer Otis Noel Pruitt, the exhibition explores race relations and issues of class, gender, and religion. 

The project aims to place in context Pruitt's life-long work of documenting Southern culture. His photographs are representative of small towns in the American South at critical and tumultuous times in our nation's history. Images include family picnics, river baptisms, carnivals, parades, fires, tornadoes, and even two of Mississippi's last public executions by hanging - as well as the 1935 lynching of two African American farmers.

Background of O.N. Pruitt

Otis Noel Pruitt was born on September 11, 1891, in Jasper County, Mississippi and would marry Lena Ware in 1910. Ten years later, Pruitt and his family moved to Columbus in Lowndes County. Once there, he started a photography studio and for the next forty years, he took thousands of photographs that would tell the story of that community. 

Although this was at the height of the Jim Crow era, O.N. Pruitt followed a unique path in that he photographed both the Black and white communities in a manner very different from some of his contemporaries. For example, there are pictures of baptisms of white church groups and black church groups along the same riverbank. In addition, some photographs portray people staged in their finest clothes taken at the studio, while other images depict residents at work or in play. These pictures present, not only a moment in the history of Columbus, but a time capsule into the American South. 

In 1960, Pruitt retired and sold his business to Calvin Shanks, his assistant and son-in-law. Sadly, on September 16, 1967, Otis Neal Pruitt passed away. Shanks changed the name of the studio to Shanks Photo Service. This company would stay in business until his death in 1981 and the collection of negatives and photographs were sold to a local hobbyist. About ten years later, a group of friends including Berkley Hudson, came into possession of these almost 88,000 negatives. Today, more than 50,000 original negatives of the Pruitt Collection are housed at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. 

Berkley Hudson

Berkley Hudson is an associate professor emeritus at the Missouri School of Journalism and has authored a book on the photo collection of O.N. Pruitt. In addition to being an expert on this historic collection of photographs, his ties to Pruitt go much deeper. Mr. Hudson was born in Columbus and the now famous photographer was actually hired to take Hudson family portraits.

After graduating from the University of Mississippi with a bachelor's in history and journalism, Berkley Hudson would eventually earn a Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is a noted writer, educator, and journalist. In 2022, Hudson authored a book covering the photographs of O.N. Pruitt, and with assistance from the National Endowment for the Humanities launched a traveling exhibit covering Pruitt's work. The Delta Cultural Center is honored to host this exhibit from July 26 to September 13, 2024. 

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

According to Bill Ferris, associate director of the Center for the Study of the American South and former chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities,

"This collection underscores the power of photography to capture the moment both in time and in emotion. Photography is a deep look at our history as a family, as a community, as a nation, and these photographs clearly allow us to pull back the veil and see what life was like in a single community. This collection is a touchstone for both the South and the nation, and future generations will continue to mine it in ways we can't even imagine."

Along with photographs, the exhibit includes artifacts from O.N. Pruitt and video. 

This exhibition, with its content, will encourage conversations within our communities as we continue to strive for equality and deeper understandings of the role of culture and history in 21st century America.