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Every December in downtown St. Louis, the city's upper crust gathers for a garish costume party that doubles as a debutante's ball, a ceremony in which the daughters of high society are paraded toward a cloaked figure in the center of the room who will select one young woman as the "Queen." Known as the Veiled Prophet's Ball, at first glance the event is easy to dismiss as outdated and clownish. But the truth is that the Veiled Prophet Society has functioned as a space of solidarity for the city's "fathers," the wealthy men at the head of businesses, banks, and whole industries who come together to break strikes, quash protests, and enforce racial hierarchies.
Devin Thomas O'Shea's
The Veiled Prophet is the definitive history of the Veiled Prophet Society in all its violence and pageantry, offering a colorful alternate history of this Midwestern city through the lens of labor politics, racial inequality, and capital accumulation. O'Shea follows the Veiled Prophet Society from its origins in the wake of the 1877 railroad workers' strike, the height of its, and St. Louis's, influence during the 1904 World's Fair, and the unexpected places its members exerted influence across the globe, from Rhodesia and Vietnam to the halls of power in Washington, DC.
Yet the power wielded by the Veiled Prophet has not gone uncontested. Orphans armed with simple pea-shooters rose up against the secret society in the late 19th century. Communists organized against them in the 1930s. And civil rights icons and renegade debutantes defied this shadowy band of ruling class elites in the 1960s. The most recent challenge to the Veiled Prophet's influence was The Ferguson uprising of 2014. Now, as the fight for the soul and streets of St. Louis is as charged as ever, it's critical that we understand and expose the long sordid history of this powerful masked society, and its ongoing impact on the ordinary people living in the city.
Sommario
Introduction
PART ONE
Chapter 1 - The Great Strike
This chapter begins with the 1877 Great Railroad Strike in St. Louis, which established the first American commune government, and which the Veiled Prophet Society organized to suppress.
Chapter 2 - The Founder
This chapter covers Alonzo Slayback's life as a border ruffian during Bleeding Kansas, a Confederate Cavalry officer, and exile in Mexico.
Chapter 3 - Lalla Rookh
This chapter discusses the literary source material used by the Veiled Prophet Society - Thomas Moore's "The Veiled Prophet of Khorassan."
Chapter 4 - The Originals
This chapter discusses the influential first members of the Veiled Prophet Society, led by Alonzo and Charles Slayback.
Chapter 5 - Ku Klux
This chapter focuses on the history of the first wave of the Klan and the ways in which the first wave focused on parade, civic celebrations, and popular culture references that disguised the group's violent intent.
Chapter 6 - Slayback's Murder
This chapter covers the first years of the Veiled Prophet Parade and Ball, as well as Alonzo Slayback's quick-draw murder at the hands of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch
editor.
PART TWO
Chapter 7 - The Big Cinch
This chapter tracks the Veiled Prophets after Alonzo's death, highlighting the general corruption and wealth inequality of St. Louis as it is becoming one of the largest cities in the United States, on track to become the nation's capital, host of the 1904 World's Fair.
Chapter 8 - The War Years
This chapter details the parades and Veiled Prophet Balls after the World's Fair as the second wave of the Klan takes off with Birth of a Nation
, and the Veiled Prophet is heralded as a "Clansmen."
Chapter 9 - Dr. America
This chapter focuses on Tom Dooley-a young gay St. Louis man of the mid-century who plays a large role in the Veiled Prophet social scene, and then ends up in the navy, in Laos and Vietnam before the war
Chapter 10 - James Earl Ray
This chapter examines why the Veiled Prophet Society was much-discussed in the assassination of Martin Luther King Junior
Chapter 11 - The Unveiling
This chapter is the high-water mark of the book, with the 1972 unveiling by ACTION protestor Gena Scott, organized by civil rights activist Percy Green.
Chapter 12 - William Webster
This chapter covers the Veiled Prophet member Judge William Webster as he goes from being head of the FBI to head of the CIA
Chapter 13 - The VP Fair
This chapter examines the 1980s Reaganite effort to rebrand and double down on the Veiled Prophet, and the failure of that event to be both pro-American, inclusive, and a new chapter in the city's life.
Chapter 14 - Michael Brown
This final chapter tracks the Veiled Prophet through the post-9/11 era, into the Iraq War, Michael Brown's murder, the ensuing protests, and international attention trained on St. Louis as a place that is emblematic of everything wrong with the United States-a city run by Veiled Prophets since 1878.
Info autore
Devin Thomas O’Shea is a writer in St. Louis. His work has appeared in The Nation, Slate, The Iowa Review, Jacobin, Boulevard, and elsewhere.
