2016 Third Thursday Lecture - The Legacy of Stetson Kennedy

The Mandarin Museum & Historical Society is happy to have Sandra Parks, representing the Stetson Kennedy Foundation, as our guest for our Third Thursday Lecture in February, on the 18th.  Ms. Parks is the widow of Mr. Kennedy and the leader of the non-profit foundation that carries on his legacy.

The mission of the Stetson Kennedy Foundation is “to do all that it can to help carry forward mankind's unending struggle for human rights in a free, peaceful, harmonious, democratic, just, humane, bounteous and joyful world, to nurture our cultural heritages, and to faithfully discharge our commitment of stewardship over Mother Earth and all her progeny.”

Mr. Kennedy is known world-wide as an author, human rights activist, and folklorist. His first book, Palmetto Country, appeared in 1942 as a volume in the American Folkways Series edited by Erskine Caldwell. Of it, folklorist Alan Lomax has said, “I very much doubt that a better book about Florida folklife will ever be written." Other books written by Kennedy include: The Klan Unmasked and Southern Exposure. According to the foundation’s website, “During the 1950s, Kennedy's books, considered too incendiary to be published in the USA, were published in France by the existentialist philosopher Jean-Paul Sartreand subsequently translated into other languages.”

Stetson Kennedy was born in Jacksonville in 1916 and passed away in 2011. He lived in the Billard House which was located in the area of the Billard Commemorative Park on Brady Rd. for many years and also at Beluthahatchee, his home in St. Johns County which is now a county park and is on the National Register of Literary Sites.

Learn about Mandarin Museum activities at www.mandarinmuseum.net. Also visit the Mandarin Community Club website at www.mandarincommunityclub.org and the Stetson Kennedy Foundation at http://www.stetsonkennedy.com.