Movies: Ray Lum

No one could spin a yarn to make a sale like Ray Lum. Twenty years after their initial meeting, Bill Ferris returned home to Mississippi in the early ‘70s with a camera. The result reveals a look back at the colorful rhythms of Ray’s life—at home, a...

Ray Lum (1891-1977) was a mule skinner, a livestock trader, an auctioneer, and an American original. His home and his auction barn were in Vicksburg, Mississippi, and in trading he fanned out over twenty states and into Mexico. A west Texas newspaper...