name in the 1940s, which simply encouraged people to pointedly frown when they heard bigoted speech. In 1952, when Kennedy ran for governor of Florida, his friend and houseguest Woody Guthrie wrote a set of lyrics for a campaign song, "Stetson Kennedy". The song was later set to music by Billy Bragg and recorded by Bragg and Jeff Tweedy's band Wilco on the album Mermaid Avenue Vol. II. Kennedy says he became "the most hated man in Florida", and his home at Fruit Cove near Lake Beluthahatchee was firebombed by rightists and many of his papers were destroyed, causing him to leave the country and go to live in France. There, in 1954, Kennedy wrote his sensational exposé of the workings of the Klan, I Rode With The Ku Klux Klan (later reissued as The Klan Unmasked), which was published by Jean-Paul Sartre. Questioned in later years about the accuracy of his account, Kennedy later said that he regretted not having included an explanatory introduction to the book about how the information in it was obtained. Bulger commented in a 2007 interview with The Associated Press, "Exposing their folklore – all their secret handshakes, passwords and how silly they were, dressing up in white sheets ... If they weren't so violent, they would be silly". A founding member and past president of the Florida Folklore Society, Kennedy was a recipient of the 1998 Florida Folk Heritage Award and the Florida Governor's Heartland Award. His contribution to the preservation and propagation of folk culture is the subject of Peggy Bulger's dissertation, "Stetson Kennedy: Applied Folklore and Cultural Advocacy" (University of Pennsylvania, 1992). Kennedy is also featured as one of the "Whistle Blowers", in Studs Terkel's book Coming of Age, published in 1995. In 2005, Jacksonville residents attended a banquet in honor of Kennedy's life, and afterward a slide show with narration at Henrietta's Restaurant, located at 9th and Main Street in Springfield. This event was largely coordinated by Fresh Ministries. The slides included numerous pictures of his travels with author Zora Neale Hurston, and direct voice recordings which were later digitized for preservation. In 2007 St. Johns County declared a "Stetson Kennedy Day". Kennedy participated in the two-day "New Deal Resources: Preserving the Legacy" conference at the Library of Congress on the occasion of the 75th Anniversary of the New Deal held in March 2008. Kennedy's most recent book, Grits and