by JoJo Sacks, CMC Coordinator
The Civic Media Center will celebrate its 28th anniversary on Monday, Oct. 18 at 7pm. Sandra Parks, Stetson Kennedy’s wife, will present the program “Stetson Kennedy: Living a Life of Purpose” in a online presentation via Zoom.
The program will explain the strategies Kennedy used for effective activism, such as his combating anti-Semitism in high school, infiltrating the Ku Klux Klan in the 1940’s, and plotting to thwart Gainesville’s Koran-burning pastor in 2011.
Known for his civil rights activity, he was active in the Florida Coalition for Peace and Freedom and was a life-long environmental protection advocate.
Kennedy, who was a folklorist, journalist and a pioneer in oral history began his writing career editing the Florida slave narratives and gathering folklore with Zora Neale Hurston during the Federal Writers Project in the 1930’s. His home in St. Johns County is the nation’s only Literary Landmark dedicated to two writers, Kennedy and his friend Woody Guthrie, who often visited and stayed there.
Before his death in 2011, Kennedy donated his extensive personal library to the Civic Media Center, which has designated its collection in his honor.
You can register for the Zoom event at https://cmcanniversary.eventbrite.com
Donations to support the CMC marking its anniversary are welcome and needed. Checks can be mailed to the CMC at 433 S. Main St., Gainesville, FL 32601, through the CMC’s Paypal at Paypal.me/CMC4ever, or on Venmo@CMC4ever.