Stetson Kennedy, 94, an author and folklorist who infiltrated the Ku Klux Klan six decades ago and exposed its secrets to authorities and the public but was also criticized for possibly exaggerating his exploits, died Saturday.
Kennedy died at Baptist Medical Center South near St. Augustine, Fla., where he had been receiving hospice care.
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.
Sybil Jason, 83, a South African-born child actress, was the Warner Bros. answer to the dominant American moppet of the 1930s, Shirley Temple. But ultimately, she could not dent Temple’s popularity.
Jason, who died Tuesday, was a button-nosed, bright- eyed scene stealer who developed a following on the British vaudeville circuit.
Jason crooned with Al Jolson in “The Singing Kid” (1936), summoned a tsunami of tears in “Little Big Shot” (1935) with Robert Armstrong and befriended a spinner of tall tales in “The Captain’s Kid” (1936) with Guy Kibbee.
Denver Post wire services
