Celebrating Blackness In Beauty Pageants: It's Complicated - Dame Magazine
By A Mystery Man Writer
Description
My interest—and eventual success—in American pageants was unexpected: Early pageants weren’t created for young Black women like me, and my teenage interests preferred books to beauty. Yet my participation in inner beauty pageants—I was Miss Teen of California (1995–1996) and the first African-American to be named Miss Teen of America (1996–1997)—introduced me to the world
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