Jim Crow beauty pageants were segregated like schools, movies, jobs, housing, hotels, restaurants, transportation, hospitals and cemeteries.
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Sunny Nash
Miss Texas High
Age 15
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During Jim Crow days, black parents had to worry about schools, jobs and housing and did not ask permission or seek opinions on children's tastes in clothes, what school activities to select or how to behave. Black parents were interested in preparing their children for a future the Civil Rights Movement promised when Thurgood Marshall argued and won Brown v the Board of Education in 1954 and when Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King won the Montgomery Bus Boycott in 1955-56.
Civil rights against Jim Crow laws were fought in real life before they were assumed.
My mother told me I was as good as anyone and better than no one. She didn't believe in discrimination on either side. She simply made me into the person she wanted me to be, which included being able to compete on whatever stage available to me and then to take that victory to another front. And she started early. I took ballet, tap, modern dance and music lessons when I was in elementary school. I am still trying to figure out where she got the money for the music and dance lessons, costumes, recital fees, sheet music and a second-hand piano. My parents didn't make much money.
Somehow, my mother managed the money because she believed these things could help her give me poise and confidence, along with eating a good diet, getting plenty of exercise, taking care of skin and hair, and wearing appropriate fashions. But those things did not complete the package. "Above all," my mother said. "Be a good person. No matter how smooth the skin and long and shiny the hair, the outside is nothing if the inside is empty. Treat people right."
Every time I heard my mother say, "the outside is nothing if the inside is empty," I thought of Rosa Parks, who was as beautiful as any beauty queen without cosmetics, but was filled with the highest moral character. Most females I knew would have done something different had they had the good looks Rosa Parks had.
As I recall her face from news coverage of the time, I remember she had a smooth complexion that did not seem to have makeup. If Rosa Parks was wearing makeup during her arrest, she really knew how to apply it so she didn't look made up or artificial. Her clothing that day, conservatively fitted, was muted in tone. She exemplified dignity throughout the entire ordeal, wearing classic dresses, suits and coats. Although, she possessed a beauty that rivaled any beauty queen's, she was less concerned about her beauty. There was something much more important she was compelled to do. Helping to launch Martin Luther King as civil rights leader of his time, Rosa Parks used her energy to make my life better and the crown she earned for her role in the Montgomery Bus Boycott in 1955 was Mother of the Civil Rights Movement.
Most people do not associate Rosa Parks with glamour because they think of her as old. However, Parks was only 42 years old at the time. But she wore reading glasses and probably a pair of comfortable work shoes. Who would consider someone wearing work shoes and eyeglasses attractive? Before my mother got me contact lenses in 10th grade, I wore glasses. My cousins got a huge kick out of calling me four eyes and running away laughing and pointing at me. My glasses saved me from being placed in special education classes because I could not read well before I got the glasses.
They may not seem important, she said, but they are the first things people notice in shorts when you are coming and the last thing they see under a short-sleeve blouse when you're going. Constantly leaning on your elbows and kneeling where the skin is rubbing on hard surfaces will cause the skin to become bruised, discolored and rough. My mother made up special beauty potions from the kitchen to use on our skin and hair. Did I mention we were on a very tight budget? During the era of Jim Crow laws, parents in our community were not allowed to have jobs that paid large salaries. Commercial health, beauty and skin care products, such as fancy creams and lotions, were not in the budget.
One of my mother's homemade beauty potions was a paste made of the juice from a fresh lemon and a teaspoon of baking soda (or salt or sugar for problem elbows and knees). We exfoliated our elbows and knees with the mixture once a week, following the exfoliation with an application of cocoa butter or Shea butter. If money was running low, we used cooking oil or petroleum jelly. Of course, there are many commercial beauty products on the market today to help erase discoloration on knees and elbows that may be caused by skin abuse or psoriasis.
My mother taught me how to walk, sit, speak correctly, be fashionable and present myself to the public. I had no clue what it all meant. And she did not bother to tell me every plan she had. "Just do it," she'd say. My father sometimes tried to step in and defend me. "You're being too hard on the girl," he'd say. I admit that, at the time, my mother was persuading me toward success, I didn't get it, until I was wearing a jeweled crown, receiving envelopes filled with cash prizes and scholarships to go to college, seeing my picture on pages of newspapers statewide, and appearing on local television and radio shows.
The first year that Miss America was televised, was on Saturday, September 11, 1954, on ABC. Twenty seven million from coast to coast tuned in to see California's Lee Meriwether capture the title for 1955. I had not started school, but I already had ideas. I wanted to be crowned, too, and showered with scholarships and opportunities for school. However, even at that early age, I knew African American women and girls were not acknowledged publicly as beautiful outside of our community.
The year I won the Press Club Pageant and became Miss Texas High, I was interviewed by nationally popular radio personality, AJ Winn of WTAW Radio. Winn, a former musician and country-western disc jockey (DJ), who also had a live interview show on WTAW from 1947 to 1966, was named DJ of the Year in 1954 by the Country Music Disc Jockeys Association.
Although, at the time, I was not singing country music, I was a big fan of AJ Winn's and appreciated the relationship between country and blues. As a result of Winn's national popularity, over the years, he booked major country-western music--Hank Williams Sr., Johnny Horton, Bob Wills, Ernest Tubb, George Jones, Loretta Lynn and Elvis Presley, among a few. I was especially pleased to be a guest on his radio show because of his connections in music, connections that would later lead to my first music industry contract.
AJ Winn called our house and said he had read about my honor in the newspaper and wanted her permission to interview me on his radio show. He wanted to talk about the state-wide competition I had won and what it meant to me, my family and the community. Explaining that the five-minute interview would be live, he went over the questions he would ask. I was comfortable because, in addition to a talent competition, in which I sang and danced, there had been an intellectual segment where finalists answered questions.
When I got to the station, it looked exactly like I imagined it would. I had sung a solo with my school choir in the KORA studio. AJ seated me in front of the microphone in the control room and told me not to be afraid. I wasn't frightened because I'd been singing with microphones for many years at school events. Then he told me to speak clearly like I had at my house. When it was over, he said I did a good job. That experience taught me how to conduct myself on-air, a skill that no one in my family could have taught me, not even my mother.
The interview with AJ Winn, my first broadcast media exposure, was a turning point in my life. Less than a year after the interview, AJ Winn retired from radio. Less than 20 years later, I became the area's first black news broadcaster. WTAW station manager/owner, Bill Watkins, hired me. AJ Winn and Bill Watkins played vital roles in my music and broadcasting careers.
Looking back, I realize what AJ Winn and Bill Watkins might have risked putting me on the radio before the last smoke had settled in American cities still in states of racial unrest. Violent protests filled television screens and created a white backlash as violent black power replaced the peaceful Civil Rights Movement. Radio listeners were not interested in what was going on in the black community, if it was not a direct threat to them, and some may have been offended by my presence on the airwaves. I know now, having been in the music and broadcasting business myself, concerts, radio shows and television programs depend on sponsors, listeners and public support. What those men did took courage. The risks were great. I give them credit for doing their part in the movement toward racial equity. After graduating from Texas A&M University, I became the first Program Director for NPR affiliate, KAMU FM, the first African American in the area to hold a position that high in broadcasting.
My mother's goal to have me help to change my community's perception of African American women was being realized. By becoming a state-wide celebrity, the publicity got me invited to celebratory luncheons and civic activities. The wives of businessmen and government officials invited me for dinners in their homes. I participated in halftime festivities at the Cotton Bowl, rode in parades on floats created in my honor and opened congratulatory cards and letters from State Legislators, like the conservative Democrat, Texas Senator, W. T. 'Bill' Moore; to U.S. Texas Congressmen, like Olin E. Teague; to the President of the United States, Lyndon B. Johnson.
When I was growing up, we never missed the television broadcast of the Miss America pageant from Atlantic City, with no idea that one day a black Miss America would walk the runway under the bright hot lights past the national TV cameras. That was still outside the realm of possibility. However, 44 years ago, on August 17, 1968, Morris Anderson staged the first Miss Black America to protest the absence of black representatives in the Miss America competition. The Miss Black America pageant took place in Atlantic City on the same night across the street from the Miss America venue. Both pageants continue today.
Somehow, my mother managed the money because she believed these things could help her give me poise and confidence, along with eating a good diet, getting plenty of exercise, taking care of skin and hair, and wearing appropriate fashions. But those things did not complete the package. "Above all," my mother said. "Be a good person. No matter how smooth the skin and long and shiny the hair, the outside is nothing if the inside is empty. Treat people right."
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| Rosa Parks Arrest Photo 1955 Montgomery Bus Boycott |
Every time I heard my mother say, "the outside is nothing if the inside is empty," I thought of Rosa Parks, who was as beautiful as any beauty queen without cosmetics, but was filled with the highest moral character. Most females I knew would have done something different had they had the good looks Rosa Parks had.
As I recall her face from news coverage of the time, I remember she had a smooth complexion that did not seem to have makeup. If Rosa Parks was wearing makeup during her arrest, she really knew how to apply it so she didn't look made up or artificial. Her clothing that day, conservatively fitted, was muted in tone. She exemplified dignity throughout the entire ordeal, wearing classic dresses, suits and coats. Although, she possessed a beauty that rivaled any beauty queen's, she was less concerned about her beauty. There was something much more important she was compelled to do. Helping to launch Martin Luther King as civil rights leader of his time, Rosa Parks used her energy to make my life better and the crown she earned for her role in the Montgomery Bus Boycott in 1955 was Mother of the Civil Rights Movement.
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| Panther Vision Led Lighted Reader Eyeglasses (Google Affiliate Ad) |
My Mother's Obsession with Knees and Elbows.
They may not seem important, she said, but they are the first things people notice in shorts when you are coming and the last thing they see under a short-sleeve blouse when you're going. Constantly leaning on your elbows and kneeling where the skin is rubbing on hard surfaces will cause the skin to become bruised, discolored and rough. My mother made up special beauty potions from the kitchen to use on our skin and hair. Did I mention we were on a very tight budget? During the era of Jim Crow laws, parents in our community were not allowed to have jobs that paid large salaries. Commercial health, beauty and skin care products, such as fancy creams and lotions, were not in the budget.
 |
| Hawaiian Sugar Cane Body Polish - 10 oz (Google Affiliate Ad) |
One of my mother's homemade beauty potions was a paste made of the juice from a fresh lemon and a teaspoon of baking soda (or salt or sugar for problem elbows and knees). We exfoliated our elbows and knees with the mixture once a week, following the exfoliation with an application of cocoa butter or Shea butter. If money was running low, we used cooking oil or petroleum jelly. Of course, there are many commercial beauty products on the market today to help erase discoloration on knees and elbows that may be caused by skin abuse or psoriasis.
My mother taught me how to walk, sit, speak correctly, be fashionable and present myself to the public. I had no clue what it all meant. And she did not bother to tell me every plan she had. "Just do it," she'd say. My father sometimes tried to step in and defend me. "You're being too hard on the girl," he'd say. I admit that, at the time, my mother was persuading me toward success, I didn't get it, until I was wearing a jeweled crown, receiving envelopes filled with cash prizes and scholarships to go to college, seeing my picture on pages of newspapers statewide, and appearing on local television and radio shows.
The first year that Miss America was televised, was on Saturday, September 11, 1954, on ABC. Twenty seven million from coast to coast tuned in to see California's Lee Meriwether capture the title for 1955. I had not started school, but I already had ideas. I wanted to be crowned, too, and showered with scholarships and opportunities for school. However, even at that early age, I knew African American women and girls were not acknowledged publicly as beautiful outside of our community.
 |
| Sony ECMDS30P Digital Recording Microphone (Google Affiliate Ad) |
Although, at the time, I was not singing country music, I was a big fan of AJ Winn's and appreciated the relationship between country and blues. As a result of Winn's national popularity, over the years, he booked major country-western music--Hank Williams Sr., Johnny Horton, Bob Wills, Ernest Tubb, George Jones, Loretta Lynn and Elvis Presley, among a few. I was especially pleased to be a guest on his radio show because of his connections in music, connections that would later lead to my first music industry contract.
 |
| AJ Winn, Country-western WTAW DJ 1947-1966 |
When I got to the station, it looked exactly like I imagined it would. I had sung a solo with my school choir in the KORA studio. AJ seated me in front of the microphone in the control room and told me not to be afraid. I wasn't frightened because I'd been singing with microphones for many years at school events. Then he told me to speak clearly like I had at my house. When it was over, he said I did a good job. That experience taught me how to conduct myself on-air, a skill that no one in my family could have taught me, not even my mother.
 |
| Bill Watkins WTAW Station Manager/Owner |
Looking back, I realize what AJ Winn and Bill Watkins might have risked putting me on the radio before the last smoke had settled in American cities still in states of racial unrest. Violent protests filled television screens and created a white backlash as violent black power replaced the peaceful Civil Rights Movement. Radio listeners were not interested in what was going on in the black community, if it was not a direct threat to them, and some may have been offended by my presence on the airwaves. I know now, having been in the music and broadcasting business myself, concerts, radio shows and television programs depend on sponsors, listeners and public support. What those men did took courage. The risks were great. I give them credit for doing their part in the movement toward racial equity. After graduating from Texas A&M University, I became the first Program Director for NPR affiliate, KAMU FM, the first African American in the area to hold a position that high in broadcasting.
My mother's goal to have me help to change my community's perception of African American women was being realized. By becoming a state-wide celebrity, the publicity got me invited to celebratory luncheons and civic activities. The wives of businessmen and government officials invited me for dinners in their homes. I participated in halftime festivities at the Cotton Bowl, rode in parades on floats created in my honor and opened congratulatory cards and letters from State Legislators, like the conservative Democrat, Texas Senator, W. T. 'Bill' Moore; to U.S. Texas Congressmen, like Olin E. Teague; to the President of the United States, Lyndon B. Johnson.
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Olin Earl "Tiger" Teague
1932 Graduate
Texas A&M University
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Olin Teague became our Texas 6th District Congressional Representative in 1946 and kept the job for 32 years (1946 to 1978). Having read in newspapers of my winning a state-wide pageant, Teague said that I, "brought honor to my state and community," and sent me a letter of congratulations, as did other state and local government officials, educators and business owners. Many dignitaries invited me for personal appearances that required me to make speeches, followed by fancy lunches.
I attended many of these events without my parents being in the room because the events were conducted in venues that were either private or segregated and did not normally welcome African Americans. My mother and father made sure I got to the events and waited outside until they were over. I always felt badly about that situation, but my parents insisted that I go inside and represent them and the community. That was a rule in the black community. Represent well. So, I did.
Teague informed President Lyndon B. Johnson, a former U.S. Representative from Texas (1937–1949) and former U.S. Senator from Texas (1949–1961) about my achievement. In response to Teague's information, President Johnson sent me a card from The White House to congratulate me for winning the Miss Texas High Press Club Pageant. This was still the era of Jim Crow laws, when everything was still separate, even beauty pageants.
I attended many of these events without my parents being in the room because the events were conducted in venues that were either private or segregated and did not normally welcome African Americans. My mother and father made sure I got to the events and waited outside until they were over. I always felt badly about that situation, but my parents insisted that I go inside and represent them and the community. That was a rule in the black community. Represent well. So, I did.
Teague informed President Lyndon B. Johnson, a former U.S. Representative from Texas (1937–1949) and former U.S. Senator from Texas (1949–1961) about my achievement. In response to Teague's information, President Johnson sent me a card from The White House to congratulate me for winning the Miss Texas High Press Club Pageant. This was still the era of Jim Crow laws, when everything was still separate, even beauty pageants.
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| Miss Black America |
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| Burned-out Row Houses Washington DC, 1968 |
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| Baltimore Riot, 1968 |
When I lived in Baltimore in the early 1970s, I was surprised to see U.S. tanks where the Baltimore race riot from April 6-14, 1968, had left areas looking like bombed-out war zones. Crowds filled streets, burned buildings, looted businesses and confronted police. Maryland Governor, Spiro T. Agnew, sent thousands of National Guards and hundreds of Maryland state police officers. When Maryland resources could not control the riot, Agnew requested Federal troops from President Johnson to restore order. Six people were killed. Tanks stayed behind for many years as a reminder of who had the real power.
Vietnam War protesters, Flower Power, hippies, yippies and Black Panthers took their tole on LBJ and threatened to shake the foundation of his Civil Rights Act of 1964, his war on poverty, his Great Society and his re-election campaign. In a televised speech about the Vietnam War on March 31, 1968, LBJ ended his re-election campaign. That was just days before the assassination of Martin Luther King and weeks before the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, Johnson's closest political rival for their party's Democratic presidential nomination.
"Don't be afraid," my mother told me. "You can do whatever you work hard enough to do. You may not win every contest but, at least, you will be in the contest and that's how you learn to compete." I learned to compete, winning some and not winning some. My mother always said, "If you are in the contest, you are not a loser, even if you don't win. The losers are those who are able to get in but do not bother to enter the game."
The year that my daughter was born, 1970, and the protest fires across America were finally simmering down to embers, the first black woman entered the Miss America pageant on June 4, 1970. By then, my priorities had changed and I had ceased to use my Miss Texas High credential. Cheryl Brown had won the Miss Iowa competition and had gone on to compete in Miss America in Atlantic. I was watching the show and two things about Cheryl Brown.
First, Cheryl Brown did not look like a white woman, a beauty measurement that had been necessary up until that time. Even in the Miss Texas High competition, which I had won, a black beauty contest, had not had a winner before me who did not look more white than black; and two: Cheryl Brown looked a lot like me.
Ten years after Cheryl Brown entered Miss America, the first black woman to earn a place in the top five was Miss Arkansas, Lencola Sullivan in 1980. In 1984, Vanessa Williams was the first African American to win the pageant. By this time, I was beyond any ambition of winning a mainstream beauty contest or any other kind. But the opening up Miss America was certainly a step forward in the American beauty standard and changed the world's perception of African American women.
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First Black Miss America Contestant
Cheryl Brown (left) Miss Iowa, 1970
& Sharon Anne Cannon (right)
Miss Maryland, 1970
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The year that my daughter was born, 1970, and the protest fires across America were finally simmering down to embers, the first black woman entered the Miss America pageant on June 4, 1970. By then, my priorities had changed and I had ceased to use my Miss Texas High credential. Cheryl Brown had won the Miss Iowa competition and had gone on to compete in Miss America in Atlantic. I was watching the show and two things about Cheryl Brown.
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| Sunny Nash Miss Texas High |
Ten years after Cheryl Brown entered Miss America, the first black woman to earn a place in the top five was Miss Arkansas, Lencola Sullivan in 1980. In 1984, Vanessa Williams was the first African American to win the pageant. By this time, I was beyond any ambition of winning a mainstream beauty contest or any other kind. But the opening up Miss America was certainly a step forward in the American beauty standard and changed the world's perception of African American women.
 |
| Vanessa Williams 1st African American Miss America |
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| Suzette Charles 2nd African American Miss America |
The dream was realized until 1983 when Miss New York, Vanessa Williams, became the first African American Miss America, but was dethroned and replaced by Miss New Jersey, the second African American Miss America, Suzette Charles.
Giving me tools that prepared me for being a guest of honor at formal occasions, each evening my mother tastefully set the dinner table for me, my father, my grandmother and herself, complete with a fresh rose or Lily centerpiece of fresh-cut flowers from our garden. She set our table with fine China, crystal, silver and linen napkins, all of which she bought as mismatched pieces in second-hand stores, considered a highly treasured art today by fashionable collectors of antiques. Therefore, I never had to guess which fork, spoon or knife to use for any part of a meal or think twice about dinner conversation in the homes of distinguished hosts.
Giving me tools that prepared me for being a guest of honor at formal occasions, each evening my mother tastefully set the dinner table for me, my father, my grandmother and herself, complete with a fresh rose or Lily centerpiece of fresh-cut flowers from our garden. She set our table with fine China, crystal, silver and linen napkins, all of which she bought as mismatched pieces in second-hand stores, considered a highly treasured art today by fashionable collectors of antiques. Therefore, I never had to guess which fork, spoon or knife to use for any part of a meal or think twice about dinner conversation in the homes of distinguished hosts.
Littie's little girl was exposed to all levels of a Jim Crow society, a society desperately trying to make an attempt at shifting its position from racist to more accommodating. "For those white people, you are the test case," my mother said. "Many of them have never seen a black girl or woman outside of their hot kitchen sweating over a stove. You have a chance to show them we are more than that."
© 2012 Sunny Nash. All Rights Reserved Worldwide.
~Thank You~
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