Stetson Kennedy, Author & Folklorist Who Infiltrated the Ku Klux Klan 60 Years Ago, Dies at Age 94

Stetson Kenney, the man who infiltrated the Ku Klux Klan 60 years ago and exposed its secrets to authorities and the public, died Saturday. He was 94.

In the 1940s, Kennedy used the "Superman" radio show to expose and ridicule the Klan's rituals. In the 1950s he wrote "I Rode with the Ku Klux Klan," which was later renamed "The Klan Unmasked," and "The Jim Crow Guide."

"Exposing their folklore — all their secret handshakes, passwords and how silly they were, dressing up in white sheets" was one of the strongest blows delivered to the Klan, said Peggy Bulger, director of the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress, in a 2007 interview with The Associated Press. She was a friend of Kennedy for about 30 years and did her doctoral thesis on his work as a folklorist. "If they weren't so violent, they would be silly."

Kennedy began his crusades against what he called "homegrown racial terrorists" during World War II after he was deemed unworthy for military service because of a back injury. He served as director of fact-finding for the southeastern office of the Anti-Defamation League and served as director of the Anti-Nazi League of New York. Source

Kennedy, who was receiving hospice care at a facility near St. Augustine, will be remembered as the man who aired the KKK's dirty secrets to the world through the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, the Anti-Defamation League and Drew Pearson, a columnist for the Washington Post newspaper.