Stetson Kennedy, folklorist, human rights activist, environmentalist and author, celebrated his birthday this year by giving instead of receiving.
Kennedy, who turned 93 on Monday, donated his personal library of about 2,000 books to the Civic Media Center.
Kennedy is not as well-known as he should be, said James Schmidt, a CMC coordinator.
He infiltrated the Klu Klux Klan in the 1940s, providing KKK secrets to the producers of the "Superman" radio program, which ran a series of episodes in which Superman battled the KKK. He even authored a book about his experiences called "The Klan Unmasked."
He also wrote other books describing the South before the civil rights era.
Many of the human rights figures of the past have been "sanitized," he said, or turned into caricatures instead of the real people they were, in order to make them more palatable to the general public. Kennedy has refused to let this happen, Schmidt said, and so his fame has suffered.
Kennedy donated the collection to secure for others a record of the history that he lived through, Schmidt said.
"He is trying to create a physical manifestation of the long memory that he has," said Schmidt. "It's amazing that someone at his age can be that conscious."
