Interview: Superman's Real KKK-Fighting Past Revealed
RSSBy Lauren Barack
Superman fought a very real enemy in radio shows of the 1940s: racial prejudice and the Ku Klux Klan (KKK). But Civil War historian and author Rick Bowers felt the official story behind the Man of Steel's exploits left something uncovered. People long believed that the radio shows conveyed secret KKK code words, forcing the hate group to scramble and change them. As he dug through historical materials to uncover the true story for Superman Versus the Ku Klux Klan (National Geographic, 2012), Bowers discovered there weren't any code words, but there was so much more. We spoke to Bowers from his home in Washington, D.C., about how he investigated a comic book hero and the importance of original sources in today's digital age. How did you find out about this story? After I finished Spies of Mississippi (National Geographic, 2010), an editor there found this little article and suggested I look more into it. The more I did, the more interesting it got. The article described a Klan-busting activist named Stetson Kennedy who came up with the brilliant idea of using the Superman radio show to attack the KKK. The reality was far more complex. It wasn't the way Stetson Kennedy said it happened, and it wasn't the way the producers publicized it afterwards. [Kennedy] was first and foremost a folklorist, and he understood the power of myth and he wanted to create myth-and that's what I didn't want to do. Did you actually discover that some history books were wrong? Embedded in this story was how there were KKK code words in the shows, which had caused the Klan to go into a frenzy to change their code words. In reality, there were no code words in the show, but this has gotten into major history books. I thought it would be interesting to show how the story got embellished and became fact. It fascinated me to unravel the real story. It just goes to show how history is transmitted. But at the same time Stetson Kennedy did risk his life in getting into the KKK, and the Superman producers did create a highly impactful program to tell kids about the danger of hate groups. So linking Superman to the real KKK was accurate? The shows were called The Clan of the Firing Cross. Spelled with a "C." It was disguised, but totally obvious. They had the Clan attacking minorities, wearing hoods, doing highly realistic things for a kids radio show. How crucial were the original documents in helping you piece together this story? Those are the things you ultimately have to find to validate your facts—original materials. If you rely on anything written by someone else, there's a good chance that something in that article is going to be written wrong. It's hard to take reality and put it in words and have it be accurate. If I had relied on the popular understanding as written on the Internet, I would be totally wrong. I knew that going in: that these were myths. The stories reside in dusty archives in people's homes and in libraries. A lot of the documents were actually in Stetson Kennedy's home. That's where the real research is, the real detective work is, in those dusty archives. That's where you find the original stuff. It also puts you in a position that lets you write something that's new, even if it's old. On the Internet, you have to have a sixth sense of what is their documentation and motivation. It's getting harder and harder. There is a swath of material. Any favorite places where you often start your research? One of great resources in Washington, D.C., is the Library of Congress. It has extensive materials going back to the founding of America. There you can get original sources, and it gives you a much better sense of what was happening at the time. Archives are the repositories of history and learning how to get to that material is key to telling a good story. How did you get the KKK to help you with your research? I didn't really need the cooperation of the KKK, which is now a splintered batch of disconnected organizations. There were a lot of documents talking about how the Superman producers came to this series, and those documents really told the story. I found those documents, which was not easy to do. There were also a lot of newspaper articles in popular newspapers and in the entertainment trade press. And I spent a lot of time with Stetson Kennedy, going over his papers and trying to decode his exaggeration. All that together created a pretty clear picture of how this worked out. Describe the thrill in bringing history out of its dusty perch. I love finding that rare document that sheds light on something that is unknown. Not to over-dramatize it, but for a little while, you're the one person in the world who knows something about a particular topic. That's totally cool, and I think it's really important to get to best truth you can get at. In this case, I had many of those moments. How important was it to the producers to make the radio shows historically correct? The producers went to great lengths to create authentic programming for kids. It was exciting to find that. The other thing I found was a set of documents from the Anti-Nazi League, a civil rights group founded by Jewish intellectuals and businessmen, which were all about exposing these hate groups. In those documents were the reports from Stetson Kennedy and an infiltrator code-named John Brown. Those were chilling reports from actual KKK meetings, and that gave me more insight into the KKK. Was it difficult asking for Stetson Kennedy's help as you tried to prove him wrong? It was a little tense at times. I knew he probably wanted to use me to build new myths about him. And Stetson is such a fascinating character. He just died a couple of months ago. A big part of him wanted to be world renowned and famous. He was also 94 years old. I found I had to approach him very carefully, and sort through the facts and the fiction. I found a lot of fact that he was rabid against the KKK and had written many articles revealing what they were about. He had collected hate sheets and would provide that information to any group. He was a Klan buster, and infiltrator. But he also took credit for things other people did. Yet, he also deserved credit for standing up against racism. In this digital age, how important is it to protect original documents? I think it's great to protect them, but you have to be able to find them. Sometimes digital archives make it easier to find things. At the same time, we can't lose the original materials. That's critical. Even at the Library of Congress a lot of things I ended up using were not digitized. Some had been on some shelf for 40 years and hadn't been touched. It's a little yin and yang. Having both together is the best way to go. But without original materials it's hard to get at the truth. This article originally appeared in the newsletter Extra Helping. Go here to subscribe.
February 9, 2012
