America's Reigning Pageant Queens Are All Black: "This Shouldn't Be The Last Time This Happens"

By Shammara Lawrence


It started in September 2018, once Nia Franklin was named Miss America. Then, Kaliegh Garris became Miss Teen USA in April 2019. Finally, Cheslie Kryst was crowned Miss USA in May 2019. For the initial time ever, three Black girls had simultaneously won three of the hugest pageants in the nation. News of the groundbreaking feat sent shock waves across the world wide web, with an outpouring of fans celebrating the women for making history.


For 25-year-old Franklin, who grew up in North Carolina and started competing in pageants in college, this year’s reign serves not only as a culmination of effort, nevertheless also because the starting. “This shouldn't be the last time this happens,” the esteemed opera singer and ardent proponent for arts education tells MTV News. “This should happen way more frequently, and I mention that because we've seen the opposite of this for years and years and years and years.”


“I feel like standards nowadays are really evolving,” Kryst adds. “I’m glad that Nia and Kaleigh and I are segment of that, and showing people that even in pageantry, girls of color are celebrated. And not only we celebrated, we're serving as a three national title-holders for the hugest pageant competitions in the nation.”


The actress Vanessa Williams became the initial Black woman to win Miss America in 1984; she was followed in 1990 by Carole Gist, the initial Black woman to win Miss USA, and in 1991 by Janel Bishop, the opening Black teen to win Miss Teen USA in 1991. Franklin, Kryst, and Garris’s monumental wins are symbolic of how much the pageant world has evolved over the decades from a past marked with exclusion and discrimination. (Women of color were barred from participating in Miss America from its inception in 1921 up until the 1940s because of a rule that mentioned contestants must be of “the white race.”)


The women’s accomplishments also speak to a bigger shift in American culture, and why aesthetics standards have eventually become more inclusive of various skin tones and hair textures, along with racial and ethnic backgrounds. “Having three ladies of color win these titles just shows how far we've come and why much we are changing the standards of aesthetics and what people find beautiful,” Garris says. “But then again, I think it just shows how far we have to go because it is such a large topic of conversation — and [that includes] our hair,” she points out.


For their respective competitions, Garris and Kryst proudly wore their hair curly — a winning decision that set The world wide web abuzz, and brought a lot of other Black ladies joy; our society, immediately considering that, is one that still ostracizes Black women for their curls and coils. (While New York City recently banned discrimination based on hair, several employers and other people still target Black women for their personalized hair choices.)


For both girls, it felt like an organic choice, and they’re not alone; more and more Black girls have opted to wear their organic hair, and sales of chemical relaxers have dropped 22.7 percent. However while it wasn’t the opening time either pageant crowned a contestant with textured hair, it’s still not the norm; the last time Miss Teen USA gave the crown to someone with organic hair was 20 years prior, when Ashley Coleman won in 1999.


“I would do appearances as Miss North Carolina with my hair curly, and people took it almost as a given. They were like, ‘Oh, you're going to wear your hair like this for Miss USA, right?’ So I was like yeah, obviously. Why wouldn't I?” Says Kryst, a North Carolina civil litigation attorney who has proposed pro bono assistance to wrongfully convicted inmates. Although she also admits, “I was a little bit worried about wearing my hair obviously because just two years prior, Kára McCullough, a former Miss USA, won with her organic curls.” (McCullough won in 2017, each year immediately after Deshauna Barber marked her win by wearing her organic hair, too.)


“So I wondered is this going to be overkill? Are people going to be like, ‘This is also much. You can't crown two girls with needless to say curly hair within a number of years of each other,’” she adds.


while she was younger, Garris frequently straightened her hair to emulate her mom, whom she deeply admires. With age, realized she might follow in her mother's footsteps without changing herself — and she began embracing her organic texture. Once it came time to take the stage at Miss Teen USA, “I knew I was going to be noticeable in a way that I didn't necessarily jump out before,” says the newly-minted high school graduate who founded We Are People 1st, a movement educating people on how to politely speak about disabilities. “I had a bit of the fear that’s all people would visualize because my hair is a big staple for pageants now.”


Fortunately, neither Garris nor Kryst let their worries deter them; both girls took the stage with their organic hair on full display. And right now with each other with Franklin, they are ushering in a new era of American pageants — one that’s slowly beginning to resemble the diversity of the world.


In the last ten years, three ladies of color have won Miss America, four won Miss USA, and five took residence the crown at Miss Teen USA. On the global stage, the majority of the winners of Miss Universe in the past decade have been of Latinx descent. By contrast, recent titleholders from the Miss World circuit hailed from a wide swath of countries and territories – including Mexico, India, Puerto Rico, China, and the Philippines.


there really is still a long way to go before the pageant world is truly inclusive, and there’s plenty of work to be done, especially with regard to including and supporting females of all body sizes and abilities, and those with darker skin tones who wish to compete. Right after Barber won, she was subjected to racist comments from online trolls, as did Nina Davuluri following her Miss America win in 2013; a recent photo of the Miss India 2019 contestants also drew plenty of backlash for the perceived uniformity in the contestants’ skintones.)


because the nature of pageants progresses, Franklin hopes the conversation also remembers the ladies for their work as much as it does their appearances. “I would like to be able to see a bigger display of the particular service work that we do,” she says. “I’ve been to schools [and] I’ve spoken to administrators about why the arts matter. I’ve spoken to the North Carolina Senate and Residence [of Representatives], and shared with them why arts education is so crucial in this country.”


“I would like to be able to see more people recognizing that females who compete in pageants are multi-dimensional,” Kryst adds. “We really are about using a platform that we have and being title holders to affect change in our communities.”


While the pageant circuit is undergoing a major overhaul in several other ways — including by dropping the controversial swimsuit competition, and challenging its backstage culture — Franklin, Kryst, and Garris visualize their work as a means to prepare pathways for the next generation of winners to create their own mark.


“To be in this position, it is really a symbol to each person that's watching that you could be anything you hope to be, there doesn't just have to be one of us in this placement at a time,” Franklin says. “There's room for each person to succeed no matter what color they are.”