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MISSOURI DEMOCRATS' NEW SENATE CANDIDATE WAS CROWNED QUEEN OF WHITES-ONLY BALL
Trudy Busch Valentine, who joined the race Monday, was crowned queen of the St. Louis elite’s Veiled Prophet Ball in 1977.
By Sara Sirota
IN DECEMBER 1977, Trudy Busch, an heir to the Anheuser-Busch fortune in Missouri, was crowned “Queen of Love and Beauty” at the controversial Veiled Prophet Ball. Outside, two protesters belonging to a civil rights group, ACTION, were arrested for demonstrating against it. Inside, photos from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch show, Busch stood alongside the “veiled prophet”: a man chosen to oversee the annual ball whose identity remains hidden beneath a white cloth resembling the hoods worn by Ku Klux Klan members.
The 1977 ceremony marked a special anniversary for the Veiled Prophet Organization, a secret society of Missouri elites dedicated to maintaining white supremacy and unchecked corporate power. It was founded by former Confederate officers in the wake of the Great Railroad Strike of 1877 — an effort to forge a populist, multiracial working-class coalition to oppose the era’s robber barons — and began hosting the ball as its annual celebration after federal troops smashed the worker revolt. A hundred years later, the affair was less of a secret but no less controversial.
A digitally archived page of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch published on December 23, 1977, shows Trudy Busch Valentine as the crowned queen of the St. Louis Veiled Prophet Ball. Photo: St. Louis Post-Dispatch
It would have been difficult for Busch — now Busch Valentine, and a new Democratic candidate for Senate from Missouri — to avoid learning about the controversy. At the time Busch won the title, Black and Jewish people weren’t allowed to join the organization; that wouldn’t come until 1979. In 1972, five years prior to Busch’s crowning, activist Gena Scott entered the ball and unmasked the “veiled prophet”; Scott’s car was later bombed, and her house was vandalized. One of the protesters in 1977 was arrested for using a “disabling chemical spray” at the affair the year prior. And at Busch’s crowning, “There were extensive and extraordinary security measures,” an article in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch said.
“I believe in the importance of working together and healing divisions — and that starts with acknowledging my own past shortcomings,” Busch Valentine wrote in a statement to The Intercept. “I failed to fully grasp the situation. I should have known better, and I deeply regret and I apologize that my actions hurt others. My life and work are way beyond that, and as a candidate for Missouri’s next US Senator, I pledge to work tirelessly to be a force for progress in healing the racial divisions of our country.”
FULL story here: https://theintercept.com/2022/03/30/missouri-senate-trudy-anheuser-busch-ball/
Edit: OK I made a faux pas.
22 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
= new reply since forum marked as read
This is so much fucking bullshit. 
For something that happened 50 fucking years ago??? Really???
she's evolved to any small or large degree.
It's not entirely unusual for some people to radically change their perspective and understanding of socio-justice issues.
Cognitive growth is possible. "Higher Conscientiousness and deeper awareness is possible.
The question for me is, what has she done in her public and private life which might demonstrate growth and change (or not)?
Racial and class tensions are nothing new in the city, as the story of a parade founded by white elites in 1877 to protect their position shows.
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/09/fair-st-louis-and-the-veiled-prophet/379460/
https://archive.ph/Y12cm
There’s a lot that I love about St. Louis, the city I was born in: baseball, the free zoo and art museum, a rich cultural history that stretches from T.S. Eliot to Miles Davis, and, of course, all of my friends and family. But the city’s inability to deal with its history of racial inequality, always closely tied to class issues, has run parallel to the city’s cultural and economic decline, leaving it in something resembling a stupor. A case study in this long decline can be found in the emblematic history of the annual Fair Saint Louis.
Held annually every Fourth of July, usually in downtown St. Louis, Fair St. Louis is a festival that includes food, music, hot-air balloons, and fireworks. Touted as “America’s Biggest Birthday Party”, it’s basically just a fun excuse to enjoy the usually hot and humid St. Louis Fourth of Julys with friends and family. This summer, due to construction along the Mississippi riverfront, the fair was held in Forest Park, a jewel of a turn-of-the-century public park built for the 1904 World’s Fair.
Attaching Fair St. Louis to these monuments of St. Louis’ former grandeur, the Gateway Arch and Forest Park, is fun and completely in the spirit of civic celebration, but also overshadows the dark and sordid history of the fair itself. Until the early ’90s I knew Fair Saint Louis by its older name, the VP Fair. VP stands for “Veiled Prophet”, and the name of the fair wasn’t officially changed to Fair Saint Louis until 1992. “Veiled Prophet” is an admittedly odd name, and the history behind it is just as strange.
In 1878, grain executive and former Confederate cavalryman Charles Slayback called a meeting of local business and civic leaders. His intention was to form a secret society that would blend the pomp and ritual of a New Orleans Mardi Gras with the symbolism used by the Irish poet Thomas Moore. From Moore’s poetry, Slayback and the St. Louis elite created the myth of the Veiled Prophet of Khorassan, a mystic traveller who inexplicably decided to make St. Louis his base of operations.
snip
Veiled Prophet: Symbol of wealth, power and, to some, racism
https://www.stltoday.com/news/archives/veiled-prophet-symbol-of-wealth-power-and-to-some-racism/collection_8076f8b4-98a5-5935-9b57-134bcda6068e.html
The details have changed over the decades: the ball was once held in the fall, the parade used to be on the day of the party. But the prophet's identity is still kept a secret, and his presence still stirs controversy.
The organization was co-founded by former Confederate officer Alonzo Slayback. The ball met with protests in the 1970s and in recent years as well. It had to move from a city-owned auditorium over allegations of racism. The members of the organization didn't include any black men until 1979.
The prophet crowns a queen every year; their last names include Kemper, Busch, Danforth, Schnuck, Schlafly, Chouteau, Cabanne, Niedringhaus, Desloge and other historic St. Louis families.
The Veiled Prophet Organization still holds a parade, and funds Fair St. Louis to celebrate Independence Day.
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/09/fair-st-louis-and-the-veiled-prophet/379460/
https://archive.ph/Y12cm
There’s a lot that I love about St. Louis, the city I was born in: baseball, the free zoo and art museum, a rich cultural history that stretches from T.S. Eliot to Miles Davis, and, of course, all of my friends and family. But the city’s inability to deal with its history of racial inequality, always closely tied to class issues, has run parallel to the city’s cultural and economic decline, leaving it in something resembling a stupor. A case study in this long decline can be found in the emblematic history of the annual Fair Saint Louis.
Held annually every Fourth of July, usually in downtown St. Louis, Fair St. Louis is a festival that includes food, music, hot-air balloons, and fireworks. Touted as “America’s Biggest Birthday Party”, it’s basically just a fun excuse to enjoy the usually hot and humid St. Louis Fourth of Julys with friends and family. This summer, due to construction along the Mississippi riverfront, the fair was held in Forest Park, a jewel of a turn-of-the-century public park built for the 1904 World’s Fair.
Attaching Fair St. Louis to these monuments of St. Louis’ former grandeur, the Gateway Arch and Forest Park, is fun and completely in the spirit of civic celebration, but also overshadows the dark and sordid history of the fair itself. Until the early ’90s I knew Fair Saint Louis by its older name, the VP Fair. VP stands for “Veiled Prophet”, and the name of the fair wasn’t officially changed to Fair Saint Louis until 1992. “Veiled Prophet” is an admittedly odd name, and the history behind it is just as strange.
In 1878, grain executive and former Confederate cavalryman Charles Slayback called a meeting of local business and civic leaders. His intention was to form a secret society that would blend the pomp and ritual of a New Orleans Mardi Gras with the symbolism used by the Irish poet Thomas Moore. From Moore’s poetry, Slayback and the St. Louis elite created the myth of the Veiled Prophet of Khorassan, a mystic traveller who inexplicably decided to make St. Louis his base of operations.
snip
Veiled Prophet: Symbol of wealth, power and, to some, racism
https://www.stltoday.com/news/archives/veiled-prophet-symbol-of-wealth-power-and-to-some-racism/collection_8076f8b4-98a5-5935-9b57-134bcda6068e.html
The details have changed over the decades: the ball was once held in the fall, the parade used to be on the day of the party. But the prophet's identity is still kept a secret, and his presence still stirs controversy.
The organization was co-founded by former Confederate officer Alonzo Slayback. The ball met with protests in the 1970s and in recent years as well. It had to move from a city-owned auditorium over allegations of racism. The members of the organization didn't include any black men until 1979.
The prophet crowns a queen every year; their last names include Kemper, Busch, Danforth, Schnuck, Schlafly, Chouteau, Cabanne, Niedringhaus, Desloge and other historic St. Louis families.
The Veiled Prophet Organization still holds a parade, and funds Fair St. Louis to celebrate Independence Day.
