Text and photos by Bill Ectric

Imagine standing under the night sky on the side of a mountain, surrounded by a thousand Ku Klux Klan members, all wearing their ghastly hoods and sheets. A huge burning cross casting monstrous shadows over the proceedings. You are also wearing a Klan sheet, but you are not one of them. You are there as a spy, to report their illegal activities to the police and expose their tactics of hate and intimidation. They have made it clear that they will kill anyone who betrays them. If they find out who you are, you're in trouble. That is exactly what Stetson Kennedy did in the late 1940's. He wrote about it in his classic 1954 book, The Klan Unmasked, a gripping account of the experience. It was often an uphill battle to get the police and the FBI to take direct action against the Klan at first. Kennedy had trouble finding a publisher for his books. Before The Klan Unmasked, he had written a book called The Jim Crow Guide, which covered the shameful segregation rules in America which required, among other things, for blacks to use separate water fountains and eat in different restaurants from whites. That book was finally published in France by Jean-Paul Sartre. It's not really surprising that Sartre would be interested in Kennedy's work. It was Sartre who said, "Existence precedes essence," meaning that we have the ability to shape what we are by our actions. Stetson Kennedy was born in 1916 in Jacksonville, Florida. When he was very young, his family had a black maid named Flo who was almost like a mother to him. Flo was brutally assaulted by white racists for “talking back” to a white bus driver when he refused to give her the correct change. Kennedy never forgot this. As he later said, “I joined the Klan in the hope of breaking it up.” I recently had the opportunity to ask Mr. Kennedy some questions, first by phone and then in person on April 15th, 2004, at a ceremony in which his homestead, Beluthahatchee, was officially designated a Literary Landmark by the Friends of Libraries USA, in part because of Kennedy’s work and in part because Woody Guthrie wrote so many songs there. The crowd mingled, old friends greeted one another, young people got involved, refreshments were served, all backed by excellent acoustic guitar and singing . Also present was Woody Guthrie's daughter Nora Guthrie, and MaVynee Betsch, known as “The Beach Lady” because of her efforts to secure Federal legislation to preserve American Beach.

Stetson Kennedy speaks at the ceremony to officially name his home a Literary Landmark

Christine Lepkoske of the Bartram Trail Friends of the Library, opening the ceremony

Above: Carol Fitzgerald of the Florida Center for the Book introduces Stetson Below: Nora Guthrie (Woody's daughter)

Lars Din

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