Billy Bragg called Abel Pharmboy to commemorate Stetson Kennedy's 90th birthday.
Bragg performs the song Stetson Kennedy on Mermaid Avenue, Volume 2, a collection of lyrics by Woody Guthrie that Bragg and Wilco put to music in two phenomenal albums.
Abel met Stetson Kennedy a while back, and that's how he and Bragg got to talking. Stetson Kennedy infiltrated the KKK way back when, and his exploits are recounted in the best-selling Freakonomics, where Kennedy is presented as essentially a proto-blogger, a "citizen journalist" in the very best sense – someone who went out and reported on the sinister underside of society to make this a better country.
Incidentally, the Mermaid Avenue albums were my introduction to the wonderfulness that is Wilco.
Aren't there a lot of questions as to the veracity of Stetson Kennedy's stories?
I believe that he's acknowledged reporting other people's findings as his own, but I don't know that there's real doubt about the veracity of the events reported.