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Dedication and Opening of Stetson Kennedy's Literary Landmark Home

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Dedication and Opening of Stetson Kennedy's Literary Landmark Home DEDICATION AND OPENING OF STETSON KENNEDY'S LITERARY LANDMARK HOME St. Johns County and the Stetson Kennedy Foundation will dedicate the Stetson Kennedy home and museum as a National Literary Landmark from 12 p.m. to 4 p.m. on November 16 at Beluthahatchee Park, 1523 State Road 13. In 2004, Kennedy’s home was designated a National Literary Landmark by the American Library Association as the site where Kennedy’s friend Woody Guthrie wrote his autobiography Seeds of Man. Beluthahatchee is now a landmark in Kennedy’s name, as well as, the only National Literary Landmark honoring two writers. The dedication of the National Literary Landmark plaque, the opening of Kennedy’s home to the public, and the dedication of the Gerald and Edith Kennedy Hart House will be held from 12 – 4 p.m., with a short ceremony at 1 p.m. Visitors will see the virtual tour of the cottage, portions of the film The Soul of a People, and footage from the upcoming documentary on Kennedy’s life. Beluthahatchee Park is located approximately 1.5 miles south of Julington Creek on the east side of State Road 13. Parking and shuttle service to the park will be available from the Bartram Trail Library and Alpine Grove Park from 11:30 a.m. until 4:30 p.m. According to Andrea Kalin, producer of the documentary film The Soul of a People, Stetson Kennedy was the last known surviving writer of the 8,000 writers and editors employed nationally in the Federal Writers Project during the 1930's New Deal. Kennedy died in 2011 at the age of 94. Working from the Dial-Upchurch Building in downtown Jacksonville, the Florida Writers Project produced the Florida Guide Book and gathered oral histories of aged former slaves, published in Kennedy’s last book, The Florida Slave. Kennedy collected Florida folklore with novelist/anthropologist Zora Neale Hurston. The African American folk tales that Hurston recorded referred to Beluthahatchee, a mythical place “where all discord was forgiven and forgotten.” Kennedy applied that name to the lake that his father had created by damming up Mill Creek, and to the neighborhood surrounding it. Kennedy compiled the folklore gathered in the Florida Writers Project in his first book Palmetto Country, published in 1942. He is best known for The Klan Unmasked, chronicling his 1940’s experiences undercover in the Ku Klux Klan. His 1950’s irreverent expose of racial and ethnic discrimination in America, A Guide to Jim Crow, was published in England at the recommendation of philosopher Jean Paul Sartre. Kennedy’s 1960’s reportage of the Civil Rights movement appeared in the nationally distributed African American newspaper, the Pittsburgh Courier. As a result of his investigative reporting, he was honored as a Fellow of the Society of Professional Journalists. Admitted to the Florida Artists Hall of Fame in 2005, Kennedy received numerous awards over his lifetime, including an honorary doctorate from the University of North Florida, the Jules Verne Medal, the King- Gandhi-Ikeda Peace Award, and a lifetime achievement award from the Florida Historical Society. In 2013, Kennedy’s papers from his St. Augustine archive and from the University of South Florida were transferred to the P. K. Yonge Library of Florida History at the University of Florida in Gainesville. With the collections of Zora Neale Hurston and Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings and records of the Florida Workers Progress Administration, Kennedy’s papers add significantly to the college’s collection on mid-twentieth century Florida. In June, 2014 Kennedy was the subject of a Monumental Mysteries show on the Travel Channel. His story will be featured on the American Heroes Channel in late 2014 or early 2015. Through a 2005 Florida Communities Trust grant, St. Johns County acquired Kennedy’s cottage and the adjoining home of his best friend, Jacksonville councilman and attorney Gerald Hart. Hart married Kennedy’s first wife Edith and lived next door to Kennedy and his wife Joyce Ann. The Hart House serves as a center for small meetings and private parties, the two buildings form Beluthahatchee Park. .
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