A PAgeAnt Politicized The Rise of Intersectional Activism in 1968 hAley cOrmier On September 7, 1968, the miSS AmericA PageAnt tOOk plAce in AtlAntic city, new JerSey, where it fAced twO diStinct cO-Occurring prOteStS. One wAS A SecOnd-wAve feminiSt demOnStrAtiOn thAt criticized the pAgeAnt fOr itS SexiSm And prOmOtiOn Of OppreS- Sive beAuty StAndArdS. the Other wAS miSS blAck AmericA, An All-blAck rivAl pAgeAnt whOSe OrgAnizerS cOndemned the inherent rAciSm Of the miSS AmericA inStitutiOn And puShed the lArger pAgeAnt tO integrAte. AlthOugh the miSS AmericA PageAnt wAS their cOmmOn tArget, the twO prOteStS—Women’S liberAtiOniSt And blAck nAtiOnAl- iSt—Occurred SepArAtely And hAd different goalS. under theSe circumStAnceS, newS- pAper cOverAge preSented the wOmen pArticipAting in the prOteSt AS AntAgOniStic tO eAch Other’S cAuSeS. in light Of further reSeArch, hOwever, thiS perceptiOn prOveS fAlSe. cOnSidering infOrmAtiOn Omitted frOm cOverAge Of the prOteStS And Armed with An underStAnding Of the erA’S JOurnAliStic cOnventiOnS, it AppeArS the femAle prOteStOrS in bOth demOnStrAtiOnS indeed SuppOrted eAch Other’S goalS, which in turn SuggeStS thAt rAdicAl feminiSm And blAck nAtiOnAliSm Of the lAte 1960S were mutuAlly SuppOrtive mOvementS. “Women’s liberation.” “The women’s movement.” “Sec- on their physical characteristics, which ultimately reduced ond-wave,” “radical” feminism. By any of these names, it women to farm animals), “The Unbeatable Madonna- was clear that a particular something came into being—or, Whore Combination” (the paradoxical necessity for more accurately, announced its being to the nation—on women to be both sexy and innocent in order to win social the boardwalk of Atlantic City, New Jersey on September 7, approval), and “The Irrelevant Crown of the Throne of 1968. This date marked the annual occurrence of the na- Mediocrity” (that only “unoffensive, bland ... [and] tionally-televised Miss America Pageant, which took place, apolitical” contestants could win the contest because they 44 in accordance with tradition, at Atlantic City’s Convention behaved how society believed women were “supposed to”). Hall. Little else, however, was traditional about the pag- The protestors—who would only speak to female eant’s circumstances that year: directly outside the venue, reporters—also wielded signs reading “Miss America Is a approximately one hundred women’s liberationists staged Big Falsie” and “Up Against the Wall, Miss America,” a groundbreaking, provocative protest of the Miss America crowned a live sheep winner of the pageant and paraded it Pageant, primarily condemning its sexist objectification of around the boardwalk, and chained themselves to a Miss women and its perpetuation of anti-feminist ideals. America dummy to portray what Morgan called women’s enslavement to “ludicrous ‘beauty’ standards.” The daylong demonstration was the foundational act of the Women’s Liberation Movement, and the protestors in- Although all of these activities were intentionally dramatic, volved were among the first to politicize and publicly chal- the event that by far generated the most publicity was the lenge the beloved Miss America institution. The very con- assembly of a “Freedom Trash Can” into which bras, cept of the protest was particularly audacious considering girdles, lipstick, false eyelashes, high-heeled shoes, copies how benign the pageant seemed to most Americans—it of Playboy and other symbols of oppressive beauty was, after all, the only program that Richard Nixon allowed standards were thrown. The protestors intended to draw a his daughters to stay up late to watch. Because the Ameri- comparison to the burning of draft cards by setting the can public generally saw the pageant as harmless all- items on fire—just as draft cards represented a restriction American entertainment, the protestors’ intense criticism of freedom, the various items in the Freedom Trash Can presented a rather shocking departure from the norm. It represented a restrictive standard of femininity. Local was this shock factor—combined with the purposely theat- ordinances ultimately prevented this symbolic burning, rical nature of the protest—that attracted the attention of but the media, having caught wind of the rumors, leapt at the mass media, whose print coverage launched the Wom- the opportunity for a scandalous story. Most reports on the en’s Liberation Movement into the public consciousness protest thus falsely claimed that “several of the women and affirmed its place amongst the various other move- publicly burned their brassieres,” thereby creating the ments of the late 1960s. Members of the New York Radical Women (NYRW), a second-wave feminist group established in 1967, arranged the seminal women’s liberation protest. One of the key organizers was Robin Morgan, a cofounder of the NYRW and author of the informational pamphlet “No More Miss America!” The brazenly-worded pamphlet contained an outline of the protestors’ objections to the Miss America Pageant, as well as an invitation for women “of every political persuasion” to join in a variety of “boardwalk- theater” activities in protest of the oppressive and unrepresentative image of Miss America, the nation’s supposed “ideal.” Morgan, who helped to distribute copies of the pamphlet to spectators on the boardwalk on the day of the event, presented the specific grievances of the women’s liberationists in the form of a ten-point list. Targets for protest included: “The Degrading Mindless- atlantiC City at night (Courtesy of wikimedia Boob-Girlie Symbol” (the evaluation of contestants based commons) ElEmEnts : : sPRInG 2017 “[T]he movement behind Miss Black America was black nationalism, which was more radical in nature than the Civil Rights Movement and often utilized separatist strategies.” 45 enduring stereotype of radical feminists as “misled” and crowned the contest’s winner. Like the women’s unreasonably bitter bra-burners. The final event of the day liberationists further down the boardwalk, the organizers occurred inside Convention Hall during the outgoing Miss of Miss Black America understood that press coverage America’s nationally-televised farewell speech, when would transmit their message to a wider audience, and several protestors began shouting as they unrolled a large thus had intentionally concocted a “newsworthy” event. banner reading “Women’s Liberation.” Although police The intriguing combination of pageant and protest proved quickly arrested two of the women and forcibly removed more than enough to attract the media, and in consequence the rest, the day’s final act of protest helped to facilitate the what Americans read in the morning paper was almost overnight transformation of the fledgling radical feminist unbelievable: the seemingly invulnerable, nationally- movement from essentially unknown to widely recognized. cherished Miss America Pageant had been challenged by not one, but two distinct protests. As evidenced by its exclusion from most 1960s historical literature I have come across and the limited amount of Before moving on, it is important to determine the greater scholarship I was able to find on the subject, few people social and political movements behind these concurrent today are aware that merely a few blocks from the women’s 1968 demonstrations. While women’s liberation was liberation demonstration, a second protest of the Miss clearly the larger movement behind the radical feminist America Pageant occurred on the evening of September 7, protest, less clarity surrounded the coordination of Miss 1968. This protest was the Miss Black America Pageant, Black America. According to press coverage from 1968, as an all-black answer to the blatantly racist Miss America well as several contemporary sources drawing from that Pageant, which had yet to produce a black finalist since its coverage, the National Association for the Advancement of founding in 1921 (and had even introduced an official rule Colored People (NAACP) was responsible for the organi- in the 1930s stating that “contestants must be of good zation of the protest. Such reports suggested to readers health and of the white race.”) that Miss Black America belonged under the umbrella of the Civil Rights Movement. Due to the rapid organization of Miss Black America, the architects of the protest recruited only a dozen participants On the contrary, recent scholarship by historian and femi- to compete in the talent, swimsuit, and evening-gown nist scholar Georgia Paige Welch has demonstrated that events held at the Ritz Carlton Hotel. The number of this was not the case. Welch consulted NAACP records in contestants was in any case secondary to the pageant’s the Library of Congress, and discovered correspondence goals, which were to force the Miss America Pageant to between local NAACP members and the executive director integrate (ironically through separatist tactics) and praise of the NAACP regarding the Miss America Pageant. The black beauty and culture in their own right, instead of records revealed that top NAACP officials considered the insisting upon their equality with Anglo-centric ideals. To pageant to be a trivial and local issue, and therefore did not emphasize this second point, the organizers of the event help to organize or even sanction the Miss Black America selected contestants with various skin tones and hair protest. It was instead devised by Phillip Savage and J. textures in order to demonstrate the diverse beauty of Morris Anderson, who were affiliated with the NAACP but black American women. Nineteen-year-old Philadelphian based in Philadelphia, a hotbed of black nationalism as op- Saundra Williams, who, according to The New York Times posed to liberal activism. Welch determined that it was not coverage, “[wore] her hair natural” and performed an the famous civil rights group but the radically-inclined in- African dance for the talent section of the competition, was dependent activists who were the driving force behind A PAgeAnt Politicized Miss Black America. Furthermore, the participants in the Bronx housewife” Bonnie Allen, who came across as con- rival pageant were exclusively black and competed in a fused and conflicted, “I’m for beauty contests.