Veiled Prophet

Devin Thomas O’Shea is a writer whose work has appeared in The Nation, Slate, Los Angeles Review of Books, The Iowa Review, Jacobin, Boulevard, and elsewhere. He lives in St. Louis, Missouri.

• IntroductionPART ONEChapter 1 – The Great StrikeThis 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 FounderThis chapter covers Alonzo Slayback’s life as a border ruffian during Bleeding Kansas, a Confederate Cavalry officer, and exile in Mexico.Chapter 3 – Lalla RookhThis chapter discusses the literary source material used by the Veiled Prophet Society — Thomas Moore’s “The Veiled Prophet of Khorassan.”Chapter 4 – The OriginalsThis chapter discusses the influential first members of the Veiled Prophet Society, led by Alonzo and Charles Slayback.Chapter 5 – Ku KluxThis 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 MurderThis 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 TWOChapter 7 – The Big CinchThis 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 YearsThis 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. AmericaThis 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 warChapter 10 – James Earl RayThis chapter examines why the Veiled Prophet Society was much-discussed in the assassination of Martin Luther King JuniorChapter 11 – The UnveilingThis 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 WebsterThis chapter covers the Veiled Prophet member Judge William Webster as he goes from being head of the FBI to head of the CIAChapter 13 – The VP FairThis 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 BrownThis 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.

“Devin Thomas O’Shea’s The Veiled Prophet inducts readers into white supremacy’s back room, revealing the pomp and circumstance of racism, the gaudy esoterica that is presumed to elevate brute domination into something sublime and mysterious. O’Shea tells the story of the racial phantasmagoria of Midwestern elites with great clarity and insight.”—Greg Grandin, author of America, América: A New History of the New World“O’Shea lifts the veil on Midwestern modernity to see the sequence of class struggle underneath. Gripping and thorough, you'll never look at the Gateway Arch the same way again.”—Malcolm Harris, author of Palo Alto: A History of California, Capitalism, and the World“The Veiled Prophet is a dark romp through the backrooms of American history. This thoroughly-researched true story reads like fiction: thrilling, colorful, and very, very funny.”—Colette Shade, author of Y2K: How the 2000’s Became Everything“This big, important St. Louis story, arrestingly told, goes to the heart of what the ruling class does when it rules and when it parties. O’Shea captures how an elite reeling from Civil War, emancipation, and a general strike turned to white terrorist symbolism and Orientalist fascinations to create an enduring pageantry that could cement alliances among the rich and create awe and interest, though also inspired resistance, more broadly.”—David Roediger, author of Wages of Whiteness and An Ordinary White“The elaborate, occult pageantry of St. Louis’s Veiled Prophet Ball is stranger than fiction. Devin Thomas O’Shea tells the whole wild story of this conspiratorial society of cloaked elites crowning each other’s daughters, crushing labor strikes, and bankrolling reaction—and in the process delivers one of the most vivid and entertaining accounts of American class power I've read.”—Meagan Day, Jacobin, co-author of Bigger Than Bernie: How We Go from the Sanders Campaign to Democratic Socialism“The Veiled Prophet is a deeply researched, beautifully written, and shocking exposé of how a secret society of wealthy white supremacists has over centuries dominated the economy and politics of one midwestern city and how that dominance has harmed the wider world beyond the metropolis. Among the book’s many achievements are its deft blending of seeming opposites—domination and resistance, continuity and rupture, social structures and human agency.”—George Lipsitz, author of A Life in the Struggle: Ivory Perry and the Culture of Opposition and The Sidewalks of St. Louis.“A true page-turner, O’Shea’s study makes plain the centrality of St. Louis to US history and the trajectory of working-class struggle from the Great Railroad Strike of 1877 to the Ferguson Uprising of 2014. The Veiled Prophet is searing and uncompromising history.”—Keona Ervin, author of Gateway to Equality: Black Women and the Struggle for Economic Justice in St. Louis"A genuinely startling deep-dive into something that sounds like it should be a conspiracy theory but is, in fact, real.... It sounds like something out of Pynchon, but it turns out truth is stranger than fiction." —LitHub Most Anticipated Books of 2026"A riotous history lesson: a century-spanning x-ray of of the underbelly of St. Louis."—Lucas Sprio, Arts Fuse"Exhilirating...a wild exploration of a shadowy elite."—Publishers Weekly