01x03 - For All America

[bunniefuu]

- [Host] Miss South Carolina,

Miss America, Miss Texas!

- [Brittany] Miss America
has always represented

the American dream.

- [Host] Kaye Lani Rae
Rafko, Miss Michigan.

- Miss America is the
definition of beauty.

She's the definition
of womanhood.

- She's a woman that all
young women can look up to.

- I will be a Miss America.

- Miss America was viewed as
an icon, a symbol of America.

- But I remember thinking,
where are the Brown girls?

Where are the Black girls?

- [Woman] Miss America has a
complicated history with race.

- Okay, starting
with rule seven?

[tense music]

- Oh, when was this
contract, 1948?

- Rule number seven
stated that contestants

must be of good health
and of the White race.

- That's pretty gross.

- Wow, that's horrible.

No, I didn't know that.

- Oh, no, I was not
even aware of that.

- There was a rule in the

had to be of the
White race, period.

- [Reporter] For 30 years,
the Miss America pageant

was restricted to Whites.

- During my time competing,

I very much felt like rule
number seven still existed

but in a way that no
one was talking about.

- I was around 10 years old
and we went up to Alabama

for a competition.

The director made it very clear

that she didn't
want a Black girl

on the cover of her program.

No matter what I did, no
matter how good I was,

I still wasn't good enough.

- He said, "I'm sorry,
Nita won that pageant,

but they couldn't give it to
her 'cause she was Black."

- One of the Southern
state directors said,

"Over my dead body will
I crown a Black girl."

- See? We told you.

See, we let a Black girl
win? See what she did?

See what happened?

- This ugly undercurrent still
very much has its tentacles

even in this
organization to this day.

[tense music]

[pensive music]

- It's generally understood
that rule number seven

came into effect under the
leadership of Lenora Slaughter.

Lenora became the Director
of Miss America in the 1930s.

In many ways, she's the reason
why Miss America survived.

She was a very proper
young woman from the South.

Lenora's strategy
was really to boost

the pageant's respectability.

- In 1948, Lenora was
actually quoted as saying

that, "Rule number seven
was aimed at keeping out

Black contestants
due to the fact

that it is absolutely
impossible to judge fairly

the beauty of the n*gro
race in comparison

with the White race."

- She's responsible for
a fairly toxic legacy

that the pageant had a
hard time living down.

[gentle music]

- My mom passed away, but
I knew more than anything

she wanted me to
get my education.

Pageants came to me as a
way that I could earn money

for school and take
that off my dad.

So I began to compete in
the Miss America system.

The system goes,

you have to win a local
pageant to get a spot

at the state pageant.

I was invited to be a
part of a Miss America

local competition
in a small town.

It was set in the middle
of a summer festival,

so we were riding
through a neighborhood.

This one lady walked
out, kinda curly hair,

Caucasian woman.

She said, look at that n*gg*r.

And I said, "Your mama!"
and kept going.

I ended up being
the talent winner.

I always won talent.

I didn't win the pageant.

I'd gotten first runner up

and the gentleman that ran
the pageant called my father

and apologized to
him and he said,

"Mr. Whitaker, I'm sorry."

And he was crying when he
said my this to my dad,

"Nita won that pageant but
they couldn't give it to her

'cause she was Black."

I competed in around 12
local Miss America pageants

before they let me win one.

After my third try to the state

to win Miss Louisiana
and not winning,

I said to my dad,

"I don't think they're
gonna let me win here.

I don't think Louisiana's ready

to have a Black
girl represent them.

I just don't think
they're there."

In the years I competed,

I was always the
only woman of color.

I remember thinking,
where are the Brown girls?

Where are the Black girls?

- [Host] The 1965
Miss America Pageant.

- So rule seven was technically
phased out in the 1950s.

- The Executive Director of
the Miss America Pageant,

Mrs. Lenora
Slaughter right here.

- Thank you Burt, for those
very wonderful remarks.

- But by the mid 1960s
under Lenora's leadership,

we still hadn't seen a
Black contestant compete

on the national stage.

For many Black women, this
signaled Black is not beautiful.

- An unofficial
culture of segregation

continued to
pervade the pageant.

This had a lot to
do with the system.

- [Host] From every part
of the state they come,

for the annual Miss
Florida pageant.

- But a lot of people don't
realize when you see it on TV

is that there's a huge
system that has led

to these 51 women competing

and it starts off with
these small town pageants.

Traditionally, these
local pageants were run

by civic organizations,
local volunteers.

Some of the pageants
were invitation only.

These were largely
White, middle class,

closed clannish organizations.

They were inviting the
young women they knew.

- [Host] Miss Alabama.

- [Reporter] Eight o'clock in
the morning in Selma, Alabama.

- At the time in the Miss
America organization,

we were just untouched,
unaffected by the happenings

that were going on
in in the world.

- I would like for you to meet
this year's panel of judges.

- There wasn't a great
deal of diversity

in the mid '60s in
the pageant world.

I didn't even think about
it, to tell you the truth.

- We believe that all
men are created equal.

- Even though you have the
Civil Rights Act going forward,

there's many movements
that are taking place

to create a more
integrated America.

- [Host] Miss Mississippi.

- Unfortunately, Miss
America was lagging behind.

[upbeat music]

But then in September, 1968,

on the same night as
there's a new Miss America

being crowned, a
few blocks away,

there's another pageant
that's taking place.

- The first Miss
Black America was held

in direct competition
to Miss America

not having Black contestants.

- [Host] Miss America,
Miss Illinois!

- They started at midnight
when I was crowned,

but then the press
could leave Miss America

and go to Miss Black America.

- [Brittany] This is not
only a beauty pageant,

but this is a
political statement.

[suspenseful music]


- This is something that the
Miss America organization

felt very defensive about.

They did bring on two
Black board members

and also a Black judge
for the following year.

- [Host] Dr. Velma George.

- It wasn't until 1970
though that a Black woman,

Cheryl Brown, won
her Miss State title,

but still for the next decade,

every woman who was crowned
Miss America was White.

- [Amy] By 1983, Miss
America was losing its grasp

on the American public.

- Go for it.

- [Amy] It had
this dusty feeling

of a early '70s
variety show.

- Go for it!

- This was the world that
Vanessa Williams walked into.

- [Host] And Vanessa
Williams, Miss New York.

- To say that she was
a breath of fresh air

is probably understating it.

- May I have the judge's
decision, please?

And our new Miss America
is Vanessa Williams,

Miss New York!

- When Vanessa won,
it was so big.

I wept tears of joy

because it was
almost unbelievable.

Miss America was this
beautiful, intelligent woman

who was Black.

- Vanessa Williams, a
college junior from New York,

who has broken one
of the nation's

last remaining racial barriers.

She is the first
Black Miss America.

- It's about time.

- Glad to know
that a Black woman

has achieved something
that I never thought

in my lifetime
that would happen.

- Her victory was hailed as
a civil rights breakthrough,

it validated the
Miss America pageant.

- Now that I have won,

it's gonna make it easier
for a lot of minorities.

There was even a Puerto
Rican contestant this year.

- Many individuals
are just happy to see

that a Black woman is crowned.

But of course
there's a moment of,

well, of course,
that's the Black woman

that they would choose.

She's fair-skinned,
gorgeous, big green eyes,

something that makes,
essentially, White America

feel very comfortable.

- Even though she was a
a lighter tone of Black,

I took that as
that's good enough.

She belongs to all
of us and I knew then

that it was more
possible for me.

- Welcome to the Miss
Louisiana pageant.

[tense music]

- Nine months later,
I finally arrived

at Miss Louisiana in 1984.

It was my fourth and final try

to win the title
of Miss Louisiana.

Good evening, I am Miss
Louisiana Forest Festival

and my name is Anita Whitaker.

Vanessa was standing
here on my stage.

She had come and
make an appearance

and crown the new winner.

I made the top 10, but I
knew this was it for me.

And then they said, "And our
new Miss Louisiana 1984 is-"

- [Host] Contestant
number 33, Anita Whitaker!

[crowd cheering]

- When you want something
and you work toward it

and you get there,
it is such a moment.

It had been years

of, "You can't."

[soft music]

I was the first woman of color
to win the title Miss Louisiana

and therefore would
represent my state

at the Miss America pageant.

It was history.

Then the story breaks about
Vanessa and everything changed.

[tense music]


[melodic music]

- In 1984, I was general counsel
of the Miss America pageant.

It was on a Sunday afternoon

and I believe I was sitting
around my swimming pool

and I got a call from
Albert A. Marks Jr.,

who was then the
CEO and he told me,

I think we may have a problem.

- Here you go, you're welcome.

- [Leonard] He said he
had just gotten a call

from one of our
sponsors who said

that a Penthouse magazine
issue was coming out this week.

- S-A-R?

- That had pictures of
our Miss America, Vanessa,

that were very compromising
and could be a problem.

- I said to my husband, I said,

"Go down and buy a Penthouse,
would you please?"

And he goes, "I'm
not doing that."

So I had to go down myself
and go buy a Penthouse

and I'm like, whoa.

- [Reporter] Nude photographs
of the beauty queen

appearing in the September
issue of Penthouse Magazine

are already on some news stands.

The 10 page spread
shows Williams engaged

in sexually explicit
acts with another woman.

- Miss America is regarded as
the ordinary girl next door.

She was a maiden.

She was innocent.

- [Reporter] The demand for
Penthouse Magazine is so great,

it's already sold out.

Down the street, others
were burning the magazine

in support of Vanessa Williams.

- We don't kick her
when she's down,

we lift her up when she's down.

- There was an undercurrent
of "See? we told you.

See, we let a Black girl win.

See what she did?
See what happened?

That's what pissed me off.

- [Reporter] Ms. Williams
insisted she was promised

that the photos
taken two years ago

would be in silhouette and
were for private use only.

She said she signed no release.

- I got a call from this man

who represented all the
sponsors and he told me,

"Leonard, this is very serious

because it could be that
we're gonna have to pull out."

And that was very frightening

because the sponsors
were the most important

financial resource that
kept the pageant alive.

So the pressure was immense
whether or not this pageant

was going to
succeed or was going

to reach the end of itself
right then and there.

- We have today, asked Ms.
Williams to relinquish her crown

and the title of
Miss America 1984.

- [Reporter] How pure
does a woman have to be?

Where do you draw the line?

- Where do you draw the line?
That's a good question.

- That Sunday, her lawyer
called me and he said,

"Vanessa has decided
she will not resign."

I said, "Okay, but just
remind her about the image

of Miss America and the
thousands of mothers

across the country
who have children

who they hope
someday will compete.

What will it do to our program?"

- Good afternoon ladies
and gentlemen of the press

and thank you for
your attendance today.

The potential harm
to the pageant

and the deep division that
a bitter fight may cause

has convinced me that
I must relinquish

my title as Miss America.

- What I kept
thinking about was her

and the disparaging of her
in the way that they did

in such a public forum,
I think was disgraceful.

- Will we be able to recognize
her with her clothes on?

- There used to be a sign here,

it said Millwood, New York,

home of Vanessa
Williams, Miss America,

it's no longer here,
taken down earlier today.

- But oft times
when Blacks achieve

a certain point of prominence,

there are those who
are prone to say

they are a credit to their race.

Are you at all concerned

that you're now a
discredit to yours?

- Not at all.

I've gotten several letters

from many prominent
Black people,

prominent Black groups
and basically the support

has been wonderful.

- I often wonder, had
she not been Black,

would they have put more
care into cleaning it up,

doing whatever they
do for politicians

to make their things go away?

- I know it was
shocking for the time,

but I think that if
she had been white,

it would've gone
away a lot faster.

- It made no difference
that she was Black.

I absolutely guarantee that.

It had nothing to do with it.

We were proud she
was Miss America

and it's just sad that she
made that decision early on

in her life to do
something that stupid.

- Vanessa's story broke in July

and then I had to get
ready to go to Miss America

in September of that year.

- While pageant officials are
trying to forget deposed queen

Vanessa Williams, many of this
year's contestants cannot.

- This year, six
Black contestants

compete for the title.

All of them feeling a special
weight from the scandal.

- As a Black woman coming
through this pageant,

there was an undercurrent of,
"So you've done some modeling.

Have you ever taken
nude pictures?"

The implication there was
that because I'm Black

and because we had similar life
experiences up to that point

that maybe there was
something in my closet.

- Thank you very
much and welcome,

boy, what a year it's been.

- But I still hoped
to make the top 10.

♪ Ooh
[exciting music]

It was probably one of
my best performances.

- May I have the judge's
decision, please?

Judges, thank you.

Our new Miss America,

Miss Utah Charlene Wells!

[crowd cheering]
[upbeat music]

- I did not make top 10.

I was devastated.

Young lady that won was a
beautiful, tall, blonde woman.

I do remember she was Mormon
and my first thought honestly

was yes, she's talented,
yes, she's beautiful,

but she's also a safe choice.

- It seemed to me that the
judges wanted a Miss America

that had a reputation that
would be morally unbesmirched,

if I could say that.

- The fallout from
Vanessa Williams was

the Miss America organization
went back into a shell.

We saw it reflected
in the very next year,

only one state organization

crowned a Black
winner that year,

down from the six there
had been the year before.

For a time, it made
it harder, it seemed,

for judges to send
a girl of color.

So let's send what is safe.

Let's send the girl
who could probably win

and at that moment it
wasn't a Black girl.

[suspenseful music]

- [Host] It all comes down
to this moment in time.

Our first runner up is
Virginia Cha, Miss Maryland.

[laughing]

- [Ericka] It was six years
after Vanessa Williams

that another Black woman
was able to have the title.

I remember watching the
night that Debbie Turner

won Miss America because
that was the pivotal moment

when I knew I wanted
to be Miss America.

I wanted to be a part of that.

- [Host] Marjorie
Judith Vincent.

[crowd cheering]
[gentle music]

And the new Miss America,
Kimberly Clarice Aiken,

Miss South Carolina!

- I think for outsiders,

looking at the Miss
America organization

by the early '90s, it looks
like all of the racial woes

and problems have gone away.

But the reality is they
just became much more covert

and underground, if you will.

- [Host] Let's welcome now,

contestant number

[gentle music]

- When I was growing up,

I didn't feel like I
had the preferred look.

I was a dark-skinned Black girl
with traditional button nose

and the hips and the
bottom of a Black girl

and the very curly, kinky hair.

So I felt the best way
to set myself apart

from all of my other
competitors growing up

was do my very best
on stage presentation.

I may not have been
the most beautiful,

but I was the one that
you couldn't forget.

Hello. Bonjour. Ohayou okinasa.

By the time I came to
compete at Miss Orlando

in the Miss America system,

I had probably competed
in roughly 600 pageants.

It's still one of my
favorite pictures of myself,

but I am completely different.

I see myself when I was
attempting to conform

to these Eurocentric
beauty standards

of having straight, long hair,

having lighter eyes,
having a thinner nose,

being a size zero in
order to be accepted.

You know, I got gray contacts,
I got the extensions.

I never had any surgeries,

but I definitely
did what I could do

that was not surgical
and wanted to present

what I thought a winner
was going to look like

and what was going to win.

[crowd cheering]
[pensive music]

- During my time competing in
the local and the state level,

I very much felt like rule
number seven still existed

but in a way that no
one was talking about.

They were allowing Black winners

but only if they were palatable.

Not Black women with
their natural hair,

not Black women who
were super curly.

I was straightening my
hair and dying it blonder.

I unconsciously made myself
into what I perceived

beauty to be because
of what I had saw win.

- I competed in Miss America

because I wanted the
scholarship money.

I wanted to wear my Afro,
I want to wear my coils,

but if that means that
I'm not going to be able

to win the scholarship money,

then I'm going to
do what's necessary

in that particular
instance to survive.

- To wear locs or
braids like this

would not have been
accepted at all.

I wouldn't have even been
allowed in the pageant.

It just wasn't the look.

It wasn't part of the
game you had to play

to be in the game.

- I had done a couple
of pageants in college

and someone told me that
I should wear my hair

parted to the side because
it's like a softer look

for Black women and so
maybe it'll make you seem

more appealing to the judges.

- I always wanted
to be Miss America.

Doesn't mean that I wanted to
subscribe to the White way.

It's just that Miss
America was the pinnacle.

- What you'll see a lot of
the times with title holders,

especially on the
local and state level,

is an extra sort of
pressure to assimilate

because they want to make
it to the national stage.

It means that you are
probably going to do

everything possible
to assimilate

into a way that these judges,

most of the time who
don't look like you,

are going to find
you relatable enough

to put that crown on your head.

But in certain
states, quite frankly,

it still isn't enough.

A friend of mine who's
still in a leadership role

in the Miss America
organization today,

told me that during the

where one of the Southern
state directors said,

"Over my dead body, will
I crown a Black girl."

It was the first time someone
had actually put words

to what we had already
kind of silently knew,

which is just in certain
states, if you're Black,

it's going to be much harder
if not completely impossible

to win no matter
how good you are.

[somber music]

- When I started competing
for Miss Virginia,

there had only ever been
one African American woman

who had ever won at the pageant

and so I knew I was already
coming into a system

in a state where the odds were
kind of stacked against me.

- What do you think of
the Supreme Court's order

to abolish racial segregation?

- It's gonna cause
a lot of trouble

'cause I don't
think the White race

and the colored race
are ready to mix.

- When we first moved here,

there wasn't a lot of
people of color period,

living in Spotsylvania County.

She was one of five kids
in the entire county

that was a person of color.

I mean, you will see
the confederate flag

flying around here all the time.

There is still a mindset
here in this area

that White people are better.

- When I first
started competing,

I was the brownest one there.

One piece of advice that I got
was I should just go compete

in DC or Maryland or somewhere
where a woman of color

would do well but it wasn't
gonna be in Virginia.

- [Host] And finally,
contestant number seven,

Caressa Cameron.

- The thing that kept me
going is the challenge.

And I also wanted to be a
part of history in this state.

- Caressa went to Miss
Virginia three years in a row,

Caressa made it to the top
five in her first year,

second year, same thing,
second runner up again.

The next year, which was her
third year, which was 2008,

like, we just knew she's
winning this year.

There's no way she cannot win.

- I think Miss Virginia 2008,

I performed the best
I've ever performed

in every single category.

- It's the
Abstinence-Plus program.

It's where you go in and
you teach holistic education

in regards to children's
sexual health.

- She was the interview winner.

Nobody touched her in talent.

[Caressa singing]

- She won talent.

I mean, she was on
point with everything.

- [Host] Ladies, good
luck to both of you.

- So when I am standing
there, final two, I'm like,

this is my moment.

You can just see my forehead

like, pressed into Tara's
forehead 'cause I'm like,

oh my God, they're
gonna call my name

and I'm going to pass out.

- [Host] And your new Miss
Virginia, Tara Wheeler.

- And then they called my
name as first runner up,

and I felt the air like,
literally like, leave my lungs.

[tense music]

My gut feeling in that moment,

they were never gonna let
someone else Black win

this pageant ever again.

And I felt if they weren't
gonna let me win that year,

it was never gonna happen.

- People took their breath,
everybody knew she had won.

- In that moment,

nothing in me wanted
to subject myself

to that kind of
humiliation ever again.

- Let these women be who
they are and if they're good,

they're good, if they're
not, they're not.

But don't let it be for
nothing relating to this.

Don't ever let it
relate to this.

- I don't know who could
have understood what we saw

without just thinking
we were bitter people

who were trying to
play the race card

because they didn't win.

There was no level
of accountability

for the fact that state
directors, local directors,

volunteers, had
almost 0% diversity.

- I currently function
as a judge's chair

in one of the states.

Essentially your raw scores,
your score for talent,

your score for interview,
for evening gown,

those scores are
essentially going to help us

determine the top five.

But once you get
to the top five,

those scores are tossed out.

The judges are then handed
the top five individuals

and they are asked to
rank them accordingly.

And of course that allows
for a certain level

of implicit bias, implicit
racism, to seep into the system.

This is where who is judging
makes the difference.

The joke is, if you're
from a Southern state,

you're gonna keep competing,
but if you don't win,

you'll move into another state
that's a bit more race friendly.

- The first thing I did when
I started competing in 2016,

I went and looked at the
previous Miss North Carolinas

and I noticed that
there was only one Black

Miss North Carolina in 1983
and it kind of threw me off

because I was just wondering,
in the last 30 years,

how has no one Black been
able to claim this title?

- Competing in the Miss
Arkansas organization

as a white woman, I was
aware of the privilege

that I was experiencing,
that a lot of

my other contestants and
colleagues were not,

and it would be foolish of me
to say that it didn't exist

'cause I know that it existed.

- [Host] Right now to
have Ericka Dunlap,

our national overall
winner of 1992 on stage.

- The lady who was talking
was one of the first directors

to take a chance on me
being from the South

and having a White woman
director who wasn't prejudiced

and I know that she probably
got a lot of criticism

with me winning overall,

and there would be
times when my mom

would have to be walked out

and I would have to be
walked out to our cars

with hotel security or
with police officers

because people didn't
think that a Black girl

should win the top prize.

- So in the aftermath
of not winning,

when I went to the
Coronation Ball,

this little Black girl that
came up to me, she said,

"If you can't win,
I'll never win."

In that moment I realized,

even if they were never going
to let me be Miss Virginia,

I was never going to
let her see me give up.

- I had made up my mind,
we getting out of Virginia.

I went to Caressa, I said,

"I'm prepared to establish
residency in D.C.

Do you wanna compete in D.C.?"

Caressa looked me square
in the eye and said,

"Mom, I'm not going anywhere.

Nobody's gonna run
me out of my state."

[dramatic music]

- [Host] This is
Miss Virginia 2009.

[pensive music]

- So in my fourth
year going back,

I went back with
zero expectations,

just to say that
I didn't give up.

I don't know what
changed that year.

Maybe some of the judges
had a different attitude

or maybe they saw that I
was gonna keep coming back.

- [Host] Your new Miss
Virginia is Caressa Cameron,

Miss Arlington!

- I was finally Miss Virginia.

Finally, I've done the thing

that I've been
working so hard to do

and I've done the thing that
people told me that I couldn't.

I hope that other young
Black girls can see

that you can come
from a place like this

that potentially has
undercurrents of prejudice

and change the course
of literal history.

[inspiring music]

Being Miss America at that
point wasn't even on my radar.

[crowd cheering]

- Only one of these young
ladies will become Miss America,

but each of them is
already a winner.

- After all of the defeat
that I had experienced,

it just felt so surreal
to finally be there.

They say you measure life
in love, if that's the case,

the people in my home
state are truly living.

I'm Caressa Cameron,
Miss Virginia.

My one goal for the entire week

was that I wanted
to make the top 15

and that was because I
had my family flying in

and so I wanted their
first experience

outside of the state of Virginia
to not to have been for nothing.

Like, I just wanted
them to at least

hear my name be called one time.

- So all the parents,

the 52 states that were
represented that year,

we was off on the west
side of the stage.

- Ladies and gentlemen,
Miss America 2010 is

[upbeat music]

Miss Virginia, Caressa Cameron!

- That moment,
nothing could top it

because when you have fought
that hard and that long

and now this is
happening to you,

it makes all of that,
in a sense, go away.

- [Reporter] Are you ready to
go out and face your public?

- Yes, I am so excited
to embrace America,

to do a wonderful job
for this country,

to impact them in the
best way that I can.

So I am so excited to go
out and meet everyone.

- When you're Miss America,

it's a very busy schedule and
the public has an expectation

that you always look your best,

that you always feel your best,

but I don't think
the organization

knew what it took to
make me stay the way

I looked the night that I won.

They were more prepared
to have a White winner.

The nature of Black
hair is different.

I needed to get a perm treatment

or I would need to get
my hair cut and braided

a certain way, or
if I had extensions,

they would need
to be reattached.

But they thought that I
could just go get my haircut

at the Hair Cuttery in
Wenatchee, Washington.

- In 2010, I was one of
Caressa Cameron's judges

and I was dismayed to get a call

from the Miss
America organization

and they were
frustrated that Caressa

had canceled appearances in
order to have her hair done

because the implication was
that she was being unmanageable.

- And I remember saying to them,

"You don't have to care
about me as a person,

but you could and should care
about the face of your brand."

And the response that
I basically got was,

"This is what it is, this
is what it's always been,

make it work."

- She needed a specific
type of care for her hair

as a Black woman,
that the organization

had zero tolerance
for, or awareness of.

- As a result, halfway
through my year,

I had to chop off half my hair

and grow all of
the chemicals out.

But during that very
painful and long process,

I had to wear wigs and
they weren't the good wigs.

They were just like a wig
that I found at a wig shop

in whatever city I
was in at the time,

and I had never felt uglier.

It was very disheartening
and it really took a toll

on my self-confidence,
just feeling isolated,

unheard, and struggling.

I oftentimes felt like I
couldn't or I shouldn't speak up

because I didn't
wanna rock the boat

and I didn't wanna mess
this up for the Black women

that were coming behind me.

- We are now open,
inclusive, and transparent,

and I want to inspire
thousands of young people

across this country to come
and be a part of our program.

- In 2018, the
organization decided

that we weren't doing
enough to be diverse,

so they decided to launch
a task force and I,

along with some other formers,

were asked to survey
the lay of the land

of the organization
at every level.

- [Host] Paige,
show us your shoes.

- Every girl that we had an
email for that had ever competed

was sent a survey.

Had they experienced diversity
within their judging panels?

How many women of color or
with different abilities

or with different
sexual orientation

had they knowingly
ever competed with?

There was a lot of
resistance from states

that did not want to share
that kind of information.

To my knowledge,

this report has never been
published or made public.

Based on the data,

most of the discrimination
and the lack of diversity

is happening on a major
scale on the local level.

We were finally
able to see that 90%

of our state
directors were White.

- Two years later, we
repeated the survey.

So, based on this report,

what we found was that

identify as White.

So what these statistics tell us

is that essentially we
still have a race problem

within Miss America.

- One of the key findings
was that our judging panels

did not represent
America and therefore,

a lot of women maybe
didn't feel comfortable

joining the program.

Those women who did were told

you need to change
your appearance

or act a certain way to
better impress these judges.

- I remember getting
emails for this report,

specifically from women
of color who were told,

"You need to wear an
empire waist gown

because you're too
bottom heavy."

Girls who were told that
their noses were too big

and so they should use
a different concealer

to make their nose
look more European

and to make it look smaller.

I knew it was happening,

but to see so many and
to hear so many stories

was just like, wow, this is
happening all over the country,

not just in Virginia,

not just in states you
expect it to happen in.

- I think many people would
look at Miss America today

and see that there
have been nine

African American
national title holders,

three Asian American
title holders,

and think that there's no
longer a race or diversity issue

within the organization.

I love the organization,

that's why I'm
still a part of it,

but reform is
actually not possible

if something's
rotten from the core,

and unless we change what's
happening on the ground

at the state and local level,

people will no longer
want to be associated

because it doesn't reflect
the change that we're seeing

in society as a whole.

[upbeat music]

- In 2018, after these findings,

we did implement policies
to ensure that, you know,

there's at least one person of
color on every judging panel.

There's probably a
lot more we could do,

but we wanted to at
least start somewhere.

- In 2022, I was honored
to be one of the judges

for the Virginia State Miss
America system pageant.

I'm like, wow,

they had someone from
every walk of life

and representation of every
different thing in life,

but when you get panels
like that in every state,

you won't have no more all
of this convoluted mess

that we've had.

- We need to see
the pageant reflect

what America looks like.

We are a nation of immigrants.

It needs to be reflected
in the modern version

of who we are, not the
one that our forefathers,

who were sl*ve owners, created.

- Whiteness should
not be the standard,

nor should it be the center
or the starting point.

It's absolutely why
my hair is loced now

because I am embracing
all of the things

and what it means to be
an African American woman.

- [Host] Miss Louisiana,

- After my year,

it was another 16 years
until the next Miss Louisiana

who was Black was crowned
and she walked up to me

and she took my
hands and she said,

"Thank you for being
my inspiration."

I had no idea.

And we just stood there
with tears in her eyes

and we just held
each other's hands.

She's done so well.

I'm so proud of her.

I can still feel the
emotion every time.

Look at that.

Wow.

- Representation on all
levels is so important,

but it is critical for
something like Miss America

because she is supposed
to be looked at

as an icon that young
women can look up to.

That's why diversity
is so important,

because it's harder
to become something

that you've never seen.

- Being Miss America greatly
affected my mental health.

- This job will
wear on you in a way

that it's hard to explain.

- You can't rest,
you can't stop.

- Survival of the fittest.
[women laughing]

- I just couldn't imagine
living life like this anymore.

- Does it take a Miss
America taking her life

for an organization to
directly address it?