The Way I Heard It with Mike Rowe - 51: Kids Stuff

Episode Date: April 18, 2017

Mr. Akai had a secret - and every kid in the neighborhood knew it.

This is the way I heard it. Johnny draped the tattered blanket over his shoulders and tied the ends around his neck. Then he climbed the ladder attached to the sliding board and looked down from the swing set upon his fellow playmates assembled below. Each wore a white sheet, perloined from their mother's linen closet, and a pillowcase pulled over their heads. They danced clumsily around a small wooden cross, performed the secret handshake, and spoke the forbidden words. Johnny struck a pose, glared down at his pals and loudly proclaimed, Take that, you Klegel, take that, you clude. Only a coward hides behind a mask.

Behind the curtains in the kitchen, Johnny's dad trembled with anger and humiliation as the mini-clansmen collapsed on the ground, howling with laughter. Mr. Akai was watching his most sacred secrets revealed and ridiculed, vanquished, in fact, by his own son, and there wasn't a damn thing he could do about it. Stetson Kennedy wasn't there to witness Mr. Akai's humiliation, but for the aspiring journalist and self-proclaimed activist, this moment was a long time coming.

Stetson yearned to destroy the Ku Klux Klan. Now, with a little help from millions of kids and the most famous reporter in America, it appeared to be happening. All over the country, men like Miss. Mr. Akai were rethinking their non-deplumes. You see, Akai, A-K-A-I was more than a name. It was an acronym.

It meant a Klansman, M-I. And back in 1946, Mr. Akai was a very popular name indeed in the great state of Georgia. The code worked like this. Let's say you're a bigot, new to town, looking to connect with some other like-minded bigots. You can't very well approach a stranger and say, pardon me, I'm wondering if you might be a racist. Instead, a Klansman would say, pardon me, does Mr. Ayak live around here? AYAK stood for, are you a Klansman? If the answer to that was yes, the proper reply was, well then, I am Mr. Akai.

And just like that, the two of you could start discriminating against minorities and telling racist jokes without fear of judgment. Anyway, Stetson Kennedy, aspiring journalist, infiltrated the KKK. He got himself a pointy hat and learned the lingo. He took their silly pledge, mastered their dopy handshake, and learned all their childish codes and goofy passwords. A vice president was a clasic. A recruiter was a cleagle. The chaplain was called a clod and so forth.

Later, Stetson would write, If the wicked bastards weren't so dangerous, they'd be like children. Terrible children, playing at some cruel game. But children, nevertheless. Stetson ran with the clan for months. He collected their personal stories. He attended numerous cross-burnings and compiled enough information to blow the whistle in a meaningful way.

Unfortunately, when Stetson presented his findings to the local paper, they refused to publish. It's not that Stetson didn't have a great investment. investigative story. He did. It's just that the editor-in-chief was a guy named Mr. Akai. When Stetson complained to local law enforcement, he found the sheriff was also named Mr. Akai. So was the city councilman and the mayor. Same problem in the next county, and the county next to that one. Even those who didn't answer directly to Mr. Akai understood the risk of running a foul of the KKK. It was a very dangerous time to tell the truth.

So Stetson Kennedy called the only reporter he knew who would never back down. A true champion of the oppressed, whose work as a journalist was simply unmatched. But this time, the legendary newsman was so incensed by the bullies of the KKK he would not rely upon the written word. Instead, he would expose the clan on the radio specifically to a massive audience of children. And just like that, a few weeks later, millions of kids listened with undivided attention as the forces of good were pitted against the most ridiculous collection of villains ever assembled. I mean, these clowns were absurd. They dressed in bed sheets and hid their faces behind pillowcases. They obsessed over code words in secret hand-shunds.

shakes. They called each other fake names and used buzzwords like Klazek and Klud. With Stetson's research, the greatest reporter of the 20th century appeared on the most popular children's program in the country and assigned all of the real-life secrets and rituals embraced by the actual KKK to a completely fictitious group of bigots in bedclothes, which brings us back to Mr. Akai, the Klansman in the kitchen whose secrets were now being mocked by a bunch of ten-year-olds in his own backyard. It must have been a hell of a thing to watch those boys,

howl with laughter, as they ridiculed his sacred outfit, scoffed at his secret handshake, and scorned the venerated words he and his friends had taken such great pains to protect. It must have been even stranger to watch. his own son vanquishing his bed sheet wearing playmates from the top of a swing set by shooting imaginary laser beams from his furious eyeballs. Ultimately, Stetson Kennedy knew that a burning cross was no match for a free press. But Stetson also understood that the First Amendment is only

as good as the people who uphold it. That's why, when truth and justice were on the ropes, Stetson look to the sky, not for a bird or a plane, but for a fictitious journalist who could show millions of kids that a bully in a bed sheet is no match for a guy in a cape. An average reporter, if we're being honest, but a superman known by millions as Clark Kent. Anyway, that's the way I heard it. The ocean delights us as playful otters restore coastal kelp forests. The ocean teaches us how our choices impact even the deepest places. The ocean connects us. Visit Monterey Bay Aquarium.org slash connects.

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