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XVI KKK BOOK STANDS Up TO CLAIM OF FALSEHOOD mMagazine article-not by its revelations about the book, which he insisted are old news, but by its implication that he hadn't really infiltrated and exposed the Klan in the 1940s. "I'm the one who was breaking it in the press," he said. "I'm the one who was testifYing in court. I'm the one who had a price on his head." Still, he said that the support ofpeople like Bulger and Turkel has reminded him of how much has changed over his long life. "Once," he remembered, "I was anathema." Now he has been widely honored. And in honoring him what he findsis important is that people are paying tribute to the things he stood for. "You can't embrace me without embracing my cause: fair play and opportunity for everybody." SUPERMAN BUSTS THE KKK I welcome the opportunity to talk about one ofmy favorite writers and civil rights activists, Stetson "Stet" Kennedy. In the 1930s he was Director ofFolklore, Oral History, and Ethnic Studies for the Florida Federal Writers' Project. One ofhis colleagues was Zora Neale Hurston, the famed novelist and anthropologist. During the 1940s the United States was fighting Nazism in World War II, but because of a back injury, Kennedy was unable to join the military. He satiated his desire to fight injustice by infiltrating the Ku Klux Klan, a domestic Nazi-like terrorist organization. He joined the Georgia Klan at the behest ofthe Georgia Bureau of Investigation; he would later come to not trust these law enforcement personnel. The information that he uncovered was reported in his books, Southern Exposure (1946) and The Klan Unmasked (originally published as I Rode With the Ku Klux Klan in 1954). In these books, he used eyewitness data to undermine the racial terrorists who used violence to enforce local Jim Crow laws and customs. In The Klan Unmasked, Kennedy described a heroic tale where he, posingas aracist encyclopediasalesman namedJohn S. Perkins, infiltrated a Klan organization in Atlanta, Georgia. Risking his life, he donned the Klan hood and robe, burned crosses, gave racist speeches, and clandestinely collected information about Klan activities. He rose to the position of Klavalier, a person expected to exercise force or violence-the equivalent ofa Mafia strongman. His wrist was slit with a jackknife, and he swore a blood oath: "Klansman, do you solemnly swear by God and the Devil never to betray secrets entrusted to you as a Klavalier ofthe Klan?" Thankfully, Kennedy violated this oath. The Klan Unmasked contained what one would expect- ...

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