Stetson Kennedy oral history interview, November 11, 1988

Interviewed by Peggy Bulger. Among topics discussed: Use of folklore for political ends; youth in Jacksonville, Florida; interest in folk speech; experience in newspaper business; training as a writer; early political influences and experiences; Great Depression; "back to the land" ideas; southern regionalism; Southern Conference for Human Welfare; political activism in college; Key West experiences and lifestyle; political education; exposure to Hispanic culture; Cuban community in Key West; Federal Writers Project; Florida Guide; Zora Neale Hurston; turpentine camps; ex‑slave interviews; Palmetto Country; Robert Cornwell; Bob Edwards; Worker's Alliance; CIO organizing in Florida; Junta des La Cultura Espanola; David Lord; Apopka Chief; Florida Alligator; Pittsburgh Courier; Zora Neale Hurston; George S. Mitchell; CIO organizing; use of folk culture for "anti‑folk" purposes; voting restrictions in the South; Eugene Talmadge; Ellis Arnall; Lillian Smith; South Today; Paul Snelling; Senator Theodore Bilbo; race "etiquette" in the South; Southern Conference for Human Welfare; Bull Connor; Southern Patriot; Jim Dombrowski; Clark Foreman; House on Un‑American Activities; Don West; R.E. Starnes; Henry Wallace campaign; Myles Horton; Highlander Folk School; Operation Dixie; Vann Bittner; folk song and political protest; Pete Seeger; Woody Guthrie; Bob Dylan; appeals to racism in north Florida jury trials; middle class folklorists; Florida Folklife Festival; Friends of Florida Folk; institutionalization of folklore; Ben Botkin; exclusion of ethnic folklore from the mainstream; urban folklore; evolution of folk culture; future of folklore as a discipline; introduction of folklore into the classroom; relevance of folklore in contemporary life.