Why "Loudest Yeller"

Loudest Yeller is a reference to a song that Woody Guthrie wrote about Stetson Kennedy. Stetson is most famous for infiltrating the Ku Klux Klan, learning their secrets and then making their violent acts and rituals known. My favorite story about this is how Kennedy worked with the writers of the Superman comic book to essentially tell kids what all of secret handshakes and such meant. Kids in the South then recognized their dad's using the signals just like the bad guys in the comics were doing. It made them look like fools to their children.

Stetson Kennedy also worked for the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) to educate people about the Poll Tax and was a writer for The Nation Magazine (for which my good friend John Nichols is currently the National Affairs Correspondent).

In 1952 Stetson Kennedy ran for Governor of Florida and that was when the song "Stetson Kennedy" was written by Woody Guthrie. The song speaks a lot about how greed leads to war and names the companies have been the cause of war - I've pasted them below.

When I was running for Sheriff of Dane County, Wisconsin, in 2002 I sang this song a lot while I was out knocking on 10,000 doors that summer. It was easier to fight the Don Quixote fight for justice in light of all of the simple actions people had taken before me. It gave me courage to think of all of the small songs, the political runs, the comic books published and Unions organized, in the historical March for Progress.  People ask me now, "Did you win?" and while I didn't win in my run for Sheriff I won in speaking my mind plainly, being the "loudest yeller" in my own way, at that time, about the stark injustice of what was (and is still) going on with the USA PATRIOT ACT or the massive incarceration rates of African Americans in Dane County jails. And no one owned those actions but me. I knocked on the doors, I asked people for their vote, I published literature saying, "Handcuffs fit people who wear ties too."

And so the song means a lot to me and so do the people involved and the spirit of where those words came from.

In 2000 I had the opportunity to introduce Billy Bragg, who recorded the song with Wilco, to Ralph Nader at a Green Party Event in Madison and I felt very close to Americas fight for democracy, equality and justice. I loved that part of my life.

And so in creating a business that consists of telling stories I don't want to tell just any story. I hope to tell the stories that helped make New York a great and interesting place. Stories of people fighting for a foothold here in America, stories of people trying to improve their lives once they got here, stories of how America improved with time and perspective.

Howard Zinn endorsed me in my run for Sheriff, the least I can do now is continue to tell the People's History as best I can and that's why I've named it Loudest Yeller Bicycle Tours. We're going to tell some good stories.

I should mention too that "Yeller" is also kind of slang for my favorite color... which is Yellow. Marc Franz's cow is yellow,

I painted a yellow cat I really like

, and France is yellow on a lot of maps and I like France a lot.

It's a good color. Makes me happy just thinking about it.


Stetson Kennedy 
by Woody Guthrie

I done spent my last three cents
Mailing my letter to the President
Didn't make a show, I didn't make a dent
So I'm swinging over to this independent gent

Stetson Kennedy, writing his name in
Stetson Kennedy, writing his name in

I can't win out to save my soul
Long as Smathers-Dupont's got me in the hole
Them war profit boys are squawking and balking
That's what's got me out here walking and talking

Knocking on doors and windows
Wake up and run down election morning
And scribble in Stetson Kennedy

I ain't the world's best writer, ain't the world's best speller
But when I believe in something, I'm the loudest yeller
If we fix it so you can't make no money on war
Well we'll all forget what we was killing folks for

We'll find us a peace job, equal and free
We'll dump Smathers-Dupont in a salty sea
Well, this makes Stetson Kennedy the man for me