Florida Frontiers: Author captured diverse oral histories

Author and activist Stetson Kennedy celebrates the 2009 reprint of his 1942 book 'Palmetto Country' with Florida Historical Society executive director Ben Brotemarkle at the Library of Florida History in Cocoa. / PHOTOS FOR FLORIDA TODAY
Carrying a cumbersome audio recorder that he called “the thing,” Stetson Kennedy traveled through rural backwoods, swamps and small towns from north Florida to Key West, collecting oral histories, folktales and work songs.
He spoke with the diverse people of Florida, including Cracker cowmen, Seminole Indians, Greek sponge divers, African-American turpentine still workers and Latin cigar rollers.
The result of Stetson Kennedy’s trek through Florida’s multicultural communities was the classic 1942 book “Palmetto Country.”
Born in Jacksonville in 1916, Kennedy traveled the world but always returned to Florida. He left his studies at the University of Florida in 1937 to join the Works Progress Administration’s Florida Writers Project and soon was named the head of the unit on folklore, oral history and socio-ethnic studies.
During this period, he was the supervisor of writer, folklorist and anthropologist Zora Neale Hurston, who also collected material for the WPA.
Kennedy’s work helped establish the collection of oral history as a valid method of historical research among 20th century historians.
In a 2009 interview, Kennedy reflected on his role as an early oral historian: “I am a great believer in oral history because (of what) I call … the ‘Dictatorship of the Footnote.’ The academicians are quoting each other instead of going out and getting first-hand, primary-source material. And oral history, of course, is (the perspective of) a participant and a witness, at least, and seeing it with all their sensory organs, and for that reason, it has more validity from my point of view.”
While collecting oral histories in Florida’s diverse communities, Kennedy was particularly moved by the plight of African-Americans suffering under the state’s restrictive Black Codes and the South’s tradition of Jim Crow laws.
A social activist as well as an author, Kennedy risked his life by infiltrating the Ku Klux Klan and exposing their secrets. Using the name John Perkins, Stetson Kennedy was able to gather information that helped lead to the incarceration of a number of domestic terrorists. These experiences led to the 1954 book “I Rode With the Klan,” which was later republished under the title “The Klan Unmasked.”

Much has been made of Kennedy’s creative choice in “The Klan Unmasked” to blend information obtained by another KKK infiltrator with his own experiences, presenting them with one narrative voice. The accuracy of the information in his book cannot be effectively challenged, just the style in which the facts are presented.
In 2009, Kennedy recalled his covert study of the KKK: “I first infiltrated during the war, when the Klan was afraid that President (Franklin Delano) Roosevelt might prosecute them under the War Powers Act. So they didn’t put on their robes, and they changed their names to various things like American Shores Patrol and American Gentile Army, and things like that, so that’s how it all began.
“And, yes, it was exciting, to put it mildly. When I went overseas some years later, I thought I’d get away from my nightmares, you know, of being caught. But in Paris, it was raining frequently, and the French traffic cops wore white rubber raincoats with capes and hoods, and their hand signals were very much like the Klan signals, so I kept on having nightmares.”
Kennedy continued working until his death in 2011 at age 94. His last book, “The Florida Slave,” was published posthumously. He wrote eight books, and his work as an author, activist and folklorist has been deservedly well-recognized. Kennedy received the Florida Heritage Award, the Florida Governor’s Heartland Award, the NAACP Freedom Award and the Florida Historical Society’s Dorothy Dodd Lifetime Achievement Award. He was inducted into the Florida Artists Hall of Fame.
For more, read his books, including “Palmetto Country,” “The Klan Unmasked,” “Jim Crow Guide to the U.S.A.,” “After Appomattox: How the South Won the War” and “The Florida Slave.”
Ben Brotemarkle
FLORIDA TODAY