Throughout the last year, the re-ignition of racial tensions in the United States in the wake of the deaths of 46-year-old George Floyd and 26-year-old Breonna Taylor at the hands of police has led many Americans to re-examine lingering aspects of their history that may have otherwise gone unchallenged.
This has come in the form of widespread calls to remove monuments to historical figures who contributed to the oppression of Black Americans, but it has also seen some celebrities come to terms with the fact that they’ve uncritically made use of similar remnants of America’s darker chapters.
And in recent days, fans of Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt star Ellie Kemper have come to realize that years ago, she had been honored by an organization with its own uncomfortable history.
To understand what Kemper is being criticized for, we must first learn about the Veiled Prophet organization that began in 1878 in St. Louis, Missouri.
As The Atlantic reported , about 1,500 railroad workers had been active in striking during the previous year, which led to reprisals from federal troops and newly deputized “special police.”
These strikes were notable at the time not only for shedding light on the harsh working conditions and low pay of these workers, but also for being as successful as they were because of cooperation between Black and white railroad workers.
In response, grain executive and former Confederate soldier Charles Slayback brought a secret society of local business leaders and politicians together to form a counter-narrative.
According to The Atlantic , this resulted in a debutante ball that selected an unidentified figure called the Veiled Prophet, who was supposed to choose a “Queen of Love and Beauty” from the debutantes present.
After the ball where these figures were selected, they would feature prominently in a large-scale parade intended to reinforce the values of St. Louis’ elite members on the city’s working class and present them as benevolent leaders.
While the parades and fairs drew large crowds, they also received significant criticism from citizens even in their earliest years.
Not only did the organization draw backlash among working class citizens, but it was also criticized for the racial stereotypes depicted on its parade floats and for the fact that the Veiled Prophet Organization did not allow Black and Jewish members until 1979, a whole century after it began.
By the 1970s, even members of the organization started to become embarrassed by what it represented.
This was partially because of a guerrilla unmasking of the Veiled Prophet by activist Gena Scott in 1973, who she revealed as then-executive vice president of Monsanto, Tom K. Smith. Scott’s car was bombed and her house was vandalized as a result of the stunt.
In addition to opening their ranks to non-white members six years later, the Veiled Prophet organization went on to rename the whole event to Fair Saint Louis as a means of distancing he ball and parade from its dark origins.
And it is here that Kemper comes in.
In 1999, Kemper was crowned the organization’s Queen of Love and Beauty while she was attending Princeton.
As Buzzfeed News reported , her inclusion in that year’s festivities was likely influenced by the fact that she was born to an influential St. Louis banking family.
As she told The Los Angeles Times in 2017, “I had a very privileged, nice, warm childhood.”
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Although her role as Queen of Love and Beauty has been known in St. Louis for years, fans elsewhere have apparently only learned of this and the organization’s history in recent days.
Due to the fact that early depictions of the Veiled Prophet featured him armed with a pistol and shotgun and wearing a white hood, some have associated the organization — and by extension, Kemper — with violent racist secret societies that also plague America’s past.
However, it’s worth noting that even in its most discriminatory times, the Veiled Prophet organization had no such links to any other groups. It’s also worth remembering that Kemper was not even born by the time they stopped openly discriminating against Jewish and Black citizens.
Nonetheless, Buzzfeed News reported that neither Kemper nor her representatives have addressed the controversy.
h/t: The Atlantic , Buzzfeed News
