In 1921, the Miss America pageant was established to recognize the most beautiful women in the country. Created on a platform steeped in white supremacy in the 1930s, the pageant rules explicitly stated that qualified contestants must be “of the white race.” Black women had to wait almost 50 years before they were allowed to participate in the pageant. In the 1940’s, “all contestants were required to list, on their formal biological datasheet, how far back they could trace their ancestry. In the pageant’s continual crusade for respectability, ancestral connections to the Revolutionary War or perhaps the Mayflower would have been seen as a plus.”
During the 1960s, a cultural awakening was taking shape throughout Black America. Through the Civil Rights Movement, the Black Power Movement, the Black Arts Movement, and Black Feminism, Black people, across the gamut of the Black Diaspora, were defining themselves, for themselves. With songs like James Brown’s “I’m Black and I’m Proud”, Nina Simone’s “Young, Gifted, and Black” and Roberta Flack and Donny Hathaway’s “Be Real Black For Me”, Nina Simone’s “Young, Gifted, and Black”, and cultural credos such as “Black and Beautiful”, the beauty of Blackness was centered like never before.
Instead of waiting to be accepted by those outside of their community, thankfully, there were forward thinkers with an undeniable entrepreneurial spirit who created their own Black pageants which affirmed the beauty of Black women outside of the white gaze.
Black beauty pageants have a rich history and cultural significance within the African American community. Their emergence was essential, these ground-breaking, unapologetically Black pageants “provided a platform to celebrate Black beauty, intelligence, and talent.”
The Founding of the Miss Black America Pageant
One of the most well-known Black beauty pageants is the Miss Black America Pageant. Founded in 1968 by J. Morris Anderson, the pageant was originally conceived as a local Philadelphia area contest “to protest the lack of black women in the Miss America pageant.” Anderson and Brenda Cozart created and produced the Miss Black America Pageant at the Ritz-Carlton in Atlantic City, just a few hours after the Miss America pageant was held at Boardwalk Hall. With its creation, the Miss Black America Pageant challenged the alleged normative standards of white beauty and celebrated Black women who were “kissed by nature’s sun.” The contest centered not only on the beauty of the contestants but also offered a platform for them to express their views on social and political issues relevant to the Black community.
In an interview with USA Today, Anderson shared his vision for the pageant.
“I wanted to give them something to look forward to that wasn’t fantasy or a lie,” he said. “We wanted to change that particular aspect of our culture, and we were motivated to do it on the same night as the Miss America pageant.”
The Miss Black USA Pageant
In 1987, Karen Arrington founded the Miss Black USA Pageant in Maryland. It was conceived as “a scholarship competition that recognizes Black women and aims to redefine beauty standards.” The pageant has the Miss division, open to women ages 19 to 27, the Ms. division for women ages 28 to 45, and the Talented Teen division for young women ages 14 to 19. Arrington spoke about the purpose of the pageant.
“When I first started Miss Black USA, very few young Black women were getting undergraduate degrees,” Arrington told the HuffPost. “One of the reasons I established it as a scholarship organization was so young Black women could pursue higher education.”Today, 80% of the recent winners are in graduate or professional school.”
“I wanted to give these women a platform so that they could be not only celebrated but elevated,” she continued. “I wanted to show society that we are worthy of wearing a crown on our head, and that remains today.”
Miss Black USA is the oldest and largest scholarship pageant for African American women and has handed out more than $700,000 in scholarships.
The Black College Queens Project
The Black College Queens Pageant celebrates the beauty, leadership, and talent of women attending HBCUs. The purpose of the pageant “is to provide great opportunities for young women attending our nation’s Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and help them better prepare for the future, as well as gain self-awareness, self-confidence, individual pride, pride for their institution and a greater social awareness overall.”
Additionally, each of the college queens in the competition are reigning queens of the HBCU they represent. In this series of competitions, each queen displays their unique talents and skill sets, and one finalist is crowned college queen of the National Black College Alumni Hall of Fame.
This year, the Black College Queens Pageant will celebrate 40 years honoring Black beauty.
Breaking The Beauty Color Barrier
Eventually, Black women would break the color barrier of beauty pageants. In 1970, Cheryl Browne became the first Black woman to be a contestant in the Miss America pageant. Vanessa Williams in 1984 made history as the first Black woman to win the Miss America crown.
In 2019, Miss America, Miss Teen USA, Miss USA, Miss World, and Miss Universe all crowned Black women for the first time, making it a historical year. But acceptance of Black beauty by organizations that have historically been racist and discriminatory will never eradicate the critical importance of Black beauty pageants.
Along with the national Black institutions, there are Black pageants throughout the country on the local level that are sponsored by churches, civic organizations, and businesses to honor Black women. With the current political landscape where Black identity is demonized, Black pageants are spaces of revolutionary resistance, a “for us, by us” ethos that we should always remember and honor.
