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Blogs by Robert A. Mills
SUPERMAN PT. 11 1/3/2015 11:21:31 AM
Stetson Kennedy hated the second KKK because it preached “One Hundred Percent Americanism” and demanded the cleaning up of its politics, and its calling for strict morality and better enforcement of prohibition (of all things!).
Its official rhetoric focused, however, on the threat of the Catholic Church, using anti-Catholic doctrine as its appeal, directed exclusively at white Protestants. This was more than Stetson Kennedy, a Catholic, could tolerate.
So, Kennedy went to Stone Mountain, Georgia, ten miles from the square in downtown Atlanta. Stone Mt. is an outcropping of granite, about five miles in circumference and over a 1,000 feet in elevation. It is the site of many ‘cross burnings’, and the home of the Atlanta KKK.
Kennedy went there for his training and his iniation. He was also learned while there that traitors and ‘big-mouths’ would be dealt with swiftly by hanging.
But Kennedy kept his cool and the authorities believed he was on the straight and narrow, a true practioner of all things KKK — all the while, he was gathering data on them, and finally blowing the ‘well-informed whistle’ on their organization. Recruitment immediately dried up and the Atlanta branch was, for all intentions, out of business. And no one ever suspected that Stetson Kennedy was the cause!
At its peak in the mid-1920s, the organization claimed its membership included about 15% of the nation's eligible population — approximately 4 to 5 million men.
The first Klan was founded in 1865 in Pulaski by six veterans of the Confederate Army. The name was probably derived from the Greek word kuklos, which means circle, suggesting a band of brothers.
However, Kennedy, years later, was not satisfied. He felt we need a ‘national hero’ to defeat the KKK once and for all. He recalled his twelve year old nephew at home in Ireland had once suggested the super-being Superman be that logical person.
Kennedy’s next call was to the producers at WOR in New York to hire himself as the ‘voice’ of Superman, and he proposed a special storyboard where the superhero battles the Klan, looking for new villains. The producers eagerly agreed. To that end, he provided information — including secret code words and details of Klan rituals.
The result was a series named CLAN OF THE FIERY CROSS, in which Superman took on the entire Klan.
Kennedy intended to strip away the Klan's mystique, and the absurd trivialization of the Klan's rituals; the code words were perceived to have a negative impact on recruiting and membership. The program begun in 1940 lasted 25 weeks.
According to reports, Klan leaders denounced the show and called for an economic boycott of the sponsors’ (Kellogg) products. However, the story earned such spectacular ratings that the food company, to its credit, stood by support of the show.
With the voice of Bud Collyer as his side kick, Stetson Kennedy and ‘the man of steel’ took on the KKK.
“It’s a BIRD!
No, a PLANE!
NO — it’s SUPERMAN!“
“FASTER THAN A SPEEDING BULLET! MORE POWERFUL THAN A LOCOMOTIVE! ABLE TO LEAP TALL BUILDINGS IN A SINGLE BOUND!”
S U P E R M A N ! ! S U P R M A N ! ! S U
On a personal note: Saturday, Dec 27th, was my beautiful wife’s birthday — hence, her name Christine — and we went, as Aimee and Brian Salminen’s guests, to see UNBROKEN. Although the ‘fastest man in Norway’ was also named “Salminen”, and with him running in that Olympic Marathon, too, and expected to win, the entire drama was authenticated in Brain’s eyes when it was announced, via the silver screen itself, that the protagonist was the winner in 1936 1936.
UNBROKEN, the TRUE story of that athletic competition between those runners, and I don’t have the least idea what you have read and heard, is a great movie — the opening scenes, the aerial battle over land and sea, including the ack-ack bursts and “bombs away!” over Germany, are worth the price of admission.
Again, on a more personal note: more kudos to Brenda Wood for again referring to Chris Holcomb to Ch.11’s “CHIEF METEOROLOGIST.”. Good for her; but not good enough to save her from an assigned driver, a mike, a pad and pencil and a M-F sked covering the streets.
Why doesn’t the black-area after his name, and before the AMS logo, contain the phrase Chief Meteorologist? It’s on screen just long enough to be read.
What is Demarco Whatshisface still doing on the air? He should be at Ch.2 or CBS or FOX by now!
Dave Wintwhatshisface or Matt Stewart should be appointed Sports Director, and JEFF HULLINGER
should be made News Director and Chief News ‘Reader’ M-F — for as long as he wants the job.
