On the penultimate day of candidate filing in Missouri, Trudy Busch Valentine turned the political world upside down. An heiress to the Anheuser-Busch fortune and a registered nurse by training, Valentine entered the Democratic primary for the race to be the next U.S. senator from Missouri. She was the old guard’s answer to populist Lucas Kunce, the ex-Marine who has proven a strong fundraiser but hasn’t warmed up to Democratic Party leadership.
Conventional wisdom gives Democrats little chance to win the seat currently held by U.S. Sen. Roy Blunt, a Republican who is not running for reelection. A passel of GOP candidates led by former Gov. Eric Greitens, Attorney General Eric Schmitt and U.S. Rep. Vicky Hartzler, are competing in their own primary. Insiders suggest the one chance Democrats have is if Greitens wins the primary because so many Republicans and independents are horrified by the accusations that he abused his ex-wife and children, threatened a woman with whom he had an affair and allegedly stole donor lists from a veterans charity he founded. Enter Valentine, a candidate with deep pockets and no record to criticize.
Or so it seemed. One day after filing closed, Valentine issued an apology. Online news publication that as a young woman, Valentine — then Busch — had been crowned queen of the Veiled Prophet Ball, igniting a long-simmering controversy of the racially divided past and present of ºüÀêÊÓƵ.
By Daniel Desrochers | McClatchy Washington Bureau (TNS)
“I failed to fully grasp the situation,†Valentine said in a written statement. “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.â€
For the uninitiated, the Veiled Prophet Ball is one of the longest-running controversies that ties the historically white civic leadership of ºüÀêÊÓƵ to the city’s racially divided past. Author and historian Walter Johnson walks through the history of the organization in his book
The Veiled Prophet organization was started as a celebration to the end of the city’s general strike in 1877, and its roots were insidiously racist.
“The city’s leading men celebrated with a midnight parade the following year,†Johnson writes. “Clad in a white hood and robes, the ‘Veiled Prophet’ first patrolled the streets of ºüÀêÊÓƵ on the night of October 5, 1878, a revolver in one hand, a rifle in the other, a bowie knife looped through his belt.â€
In 1972, civil rights activist Percy Green and his ACTION organization famously unveiled the secretive prophet — generally a CEO of a major ºüÀêÊÓƵ company — in an attempt to shame the historically racist organization for its ongoing secrecy and refusal to acknowledge its past.
Just a few years later, Valentine was the queen of the ball.
Her apology echoes another one just last year from actress Ellie Kemper, who similarly said when she was involved in the ball, she should have known better.
It’s progress, perhaps, but the organization persists, and its secrecy is a constant. When the Post-Dispatch reported on Kemper’s apology, quoting members of the current Veiled Prophet organization, not a single one of them would attach their name to the defenses of the organization, which didn’t accept Black people as members until two years after Valentine was queen.
The secrecy says something about the shame of the past that has yet to be erased. If you can’t talk about your organization with your name attached to it, then that organization probably shouldn’t exist. Indeed, that’s what Green believes should happen: After Kemper’s apology, he said the only real solution to the never-ending controversy is for the Veiled Prophet organization to go away once and for all.
Johnson, the historian, agrees. But beyond that, he believes Valentine’s new elevated public role as a Senate candidate offers an opportunity:
“What about really listening to those whom the system that the Veiled Prophet symbolizes has wronged and finding out what they might imagine as concrete and consequential restorative steps?†he says. “A genuinely curious and humble response could model for the city’s elite a new way of approaching the past — one characterized by a willingness to listen and learn, rather than denial and defensiveness.â€
Valentine’s role in a remnant of the city’s past should not define her candidacy. But what if she stood arm and arm with Percy Green demanding the sort of real change that has escaped ºüÀêÊÓƵ for far too long?