MISSOURI DEMOCRATS' NEW SENATE CANDIDATE WAS CROWNED QUEEN OF WHITES-ONLY BALL

[Celerity]

15. The Mystery of St. Louis's Veiled Prophet

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.

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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.