Stetson Kennedy is dead. The man who crushed the KKK.

[ThatPoetGuy]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/obituaries/stetson-kennedy-author-of-klan-unmasked-dies-at-94/2011/08/28/gIQAKi1plJ_story.html

The Klan was growing, gaining in power. It had two million members.

Stetson Kennedy was a boy. And the Klan assaulted his nanny. When he grew up, he wrote to officials, trying to get them to clamp down on the Klan. Nobody bothered. He infiltrated the Klan, and sent their plans and secrets to the authorities. No one cared.

So he wrote about them. He wrote about them for the old Superman radio program. He turned them into villains, but more than that, he turned them into laughingstocks. The Klan was made up of losers clinging to racial pride, hiding behind secret codes to convince themselves that they were modern-day knights and heroes. But Stetson Kennedy learned their secrets, and revealed them... on the Superman radio program.

The Klan shattered in a number of weeks.

Later, Stetson Kennedy began the movement of frown power -- when your coworker makes racist comments, just frown. When the guy at the bar launches a racist diatribe, just frown.

The power of disapproval helped change the world.

Join me in a drink tonight, to the memory of a truly great man.

[Octafish]

1. To Stetson Kennedy!

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAstetson.htm

A toast and a smile for a truly wonderful and remarkable human being.

[PDJane]

2. To Stetson Kennedy Indeed..........

May his spirit guide us all.

[TheDebbieDee]

3. Here's to Stetson Kennedy.........

And thank you for the history lesson.

[JustAnotherGen]

4. What a great article

I would have totally missed this. He had chutzpah to the nth degree!

[TBA]

5. A Documentary about him is in the works...

"Klandestine Man" due in 2012

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm4409822/

[firehorse]

6. Someone make a movie on him!

[yardwork]

7. He was employed by the Federal Writer's Project, a New Deal program

from wikipedia:

"The Federal Writers' Project (FWP) was a United States federal government project to fund written work and support writers during the Great Depression. It was part of the Works Progress Administration, a New Deal program. It was one of a group of New Deal arts programs known collectively as Federal One."