Former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon is expected in St. Louis on Sunday for a rally and to receive an award.
Bannon is to receive the Phyllis Schlafly Eagle Award during a luncheon hosted by Phyllis Schlafly Eagles, a spinoff of the conservative think tank Eagle Forum that Schlafly founded and led until her death last year at age 92.
The rally is scheduled for Sunday afternoon and comes at a tense time in the city, which has had protests since a mid-September verdict acquitting a white former police officer in the killing of a black suspect.
Bannon left his White House post in August after a turbulent seven months. He immediately returned to Breitbart News, which he led before joining Trump’s campaign.
Former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon (file above) is expected in St. Louis on Sunday for a rally and to receive an award
Ed Martin, president of Phyllis Schlafly Eagles, called Bannon ‘a proven political force.’
‘His leadership of the Trump 2016 campaign showed us not only that he is a true movement conservative, but that he knows how to cut through the establishment ‘kingmaker’ clutter and message directly to the American people,’ Martin said in a news release.
The website for Phyllis Schlafly Eagles says that at the rally, Bannon ‘will share his insights as a conservative thinker, media executive, and Trump supporter.’
Bannon’s appearance comes at a volatile time in St. Louis.
Bannon (pictured above in June) is to receive the Phyllis Schlafly Eagle Award during a luncheon hosted by Phyllis Schlafly Eagles, a spinoff of the conservative think tank Eagle Forum that Schlafly founded and led until her death last year at age 92
The acquittal of former police officer Jason Stockley of first-degree murder in the 2011 shooting death of a black drug suspect, 24-year-old Anthony Lamar Smith, has led to nightly demonstrations.
More than 160 people have been arrested in protests since the ruling.
Protest organizers have not said if they would demonstrate at the rally at the Marriott St. Louis Airport, a private event requiring a ticket.
Schlafly, of suburban St. Louis, was the driving force behind defeat of the pro-feminist Equal Rights Amendment in the 1970s.
Her endorsement of Trump several months before her death was part of the internal organizational strife that led Phyllis Schlafly Eagles to break away from Eagle Forum.
Some other members of the Eagle Forum board supported other Republican presidential candidates in 2016.