Photographer Bill Hudson, who documented civil rights era, dies at 77

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Bill Hudson, an Associated Press photographer whose searing images of the civil rights era documented police brutality and galvanized the public, died Thursday of congestive heart failure in Florida, according to his wife, the former Patricia Gantert. He was 77.

Hudson’s most enduring image is of police turning their dogs loose on civil rights demonstrators in Birmingham, Ala., in 1963.

Hudson also worked for United Press International and several newspapers.

[update 4:30 p.m.] Click here to see the photo as it appeared in The Times on May 4, 1963.

More later at www.latimes.com/obits.

-- Associated Press

Top photo: Sheriff Bull Connor’s officers with dogs attacking demonstrators in Birmingham, Ala., in May 1963. Credit: Bill Hudson / Associated Press