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It is my time to shine. So the veiled prophet is an major institution in St. Louis rooted in a deeply troubling past; to call it a KKK princess isn't wrong but also not righthttps://twitter.com/Imani_Barbarin/status/1399439561734959107 …
The Veiled Prophet (VP) started in the late 1800s in reaction to growing labor movements where black and white workers came together to strike. The police and wealthy elite came together to divert attention away from strikers and assert power.
The first ever veiled prophet and only one of two every identified was the police chief at the time. Clearly as you can see the picture below was an outfit that looks pretty similar to the KKKpic.twitter.com/ih9RpYnmf1
The Veiled Prophet was then established as an organization for wealthy elite. The had a veiled prophet ball and parade and other events. The Veiled Prophet ball was where the daughters of wealthy elite were debuted, much like a debutante ball.
A group of wealthy elite men in a secret committee pick one old wealthy elite white guy who is the Veiled Prophet and his identity is never revealed and he picks one of the girls to be his Veiled Prophet queen.
The costumes while still Klan-like started to take on more new Orleans style.pic.twitter.com/M3JixroNgF
These veiled prophet balls were huge social events for st. Louis wealthy elite and was segregated which leads to protests in the late 60s and early 70s where ACTION (local activist group) and Percy Green demonstrated outside the Veiled Prophet
They dressed up as a black veiled prophet and crowed their own VP queen who instead of being called the queen of love and beauty like the VP ball did they crowned a queen of human justicepic.twitter.com/p9XyVq5EQ3
In 1972 as part of the protests 3 white women were able to gain access to the Veiled Prophet and one of them lowered herself down from a balcony by a cable and ran on stage to unmask the Veiled Prophet and it was the CEO of Monsanto, that woman's car was later bombed
That is only twice in the over 100 years a Veiled Prophet was revealed. These protests also weren't to call for it to be desegregated but to mock its whiteness and call out the wealthy elite
The Veiled Prophet still exists today although far less prestigious, the Veiled Prophet fair and ball still exist and in fact Fair St. Louis the celebration that happens over the 4th of July is actually the Veiled Prophet ball under a new name.
Daughters are still part of the ball and you can see pictures in the local paper https://www.laduenews.com/see-all-the-photos-from-the-2019-veiled-prophet-ball/collection_63687b7b-eb16-5b2a-9bf5-3aeb126ff2e5.html#:~:text=The%20135th%20annual%20Veiled%20Prophet,mark%20their%20debut%20into%20society ….
Most recently the Veiled Prophet crown was stolen (museum heist!) from the Missouri History Museum which you can read about here:https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.riverfronttimes.com/newsblog/2018/04/18/old-ass-racism-crowns-stolen-from-history-museum%3fmedia=AMP%2bHTML …
I do want to clarify the Veiled Prophet has its own evil roots and messed up stuff but it isn't directly (in an official way) related to the KKK. Protesters have nicknamed it and called it KKK cause it does have bad roots but it isn't officially related.
Today many daughters of wealthy people participate in it and it's roots are clearly left out as we know organizations white wash history so many young teenage girls participate in this because of family pressures with no idea of the back ground
In fact many St. Louis' residents are unaware I'm born and raised but didn't know about it until I started working in the history museum sector
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