Your argument began that rural Missouri is so obviously Southern in its people and culture and compared it to one of the most infamously racist and segregated towns of Alabama. To respond to IrishScott's post that criers of racism cannot "claim 150 year old baggage", you brought up the fact there was a failed secession attempt and a small violent pro-Confederacy movement present in Missouri, and then mention "the whole point of all this coy denial of racism". You don't explicitly ever state the logic as concisely as above, but unless you're bringing up anecdotes about Missouri from 150 years ago with no intended purpose of linking them to the argument that this rodeo was fueled by racist fervor, it's pretty obvious what your intent is.
And from what I can tell, the James-Younger Gang was a band of assorted outlaws with no explicit racial message even if they were comprised mostly of ex-Confederate soldiers and vagabonds. More guilt-by-association fallacies from you.
Obviously, you've never spent any time in rural Missouri, either.
I liked it a lot better when racists were open about their beliefs. They still believe in the same things in an almost unconscious subconscious utterly insensitive way, but they hide it because it's socially unacceptable in our larger society. They even hide it from themselves, a form of denial so pervasive that it effectively prevents them from achieving mental victory over concepts they know to be wrong headed.
Despite all the obfuscations & denial, Missouri was most definitely a slave state, with all the cultural baggage associated with that simple fact. Old ways die hard, particularly when outside cultural influences are weak to non-existent, & actively rejected. Such is and has been the case for 150 years in rural regions of former slave states, not just Missouri.