It’s been a momentous pageantry season for the beauty queens using advocacy and representation to shape the world one crown at a time.
From tackling social justice issues to the first Miss America to be crowned with natural hair, Black beauty pageant contestants are redefining cultural standards on the national stage, all the while continuing a historic tradition to emulate the change to be seen in the world.
“As a native Washingtonian, I wanted to represent the city in a way that spoke volumes,” said reigning Ms. District of Columbia Senior America Betty Entzminger. “I mentor girls who’ve been told they’re not pretty enough, abused, and [who] suffer with low self-esteem…To be in that platform, at this moment at 68, I’m very grateful to have that.”
When Entzminger graces the national stage Oct. 11-16, the Miss Senior America contestant will carry three generations of Washington, D.C. and a personal commitment to protect the young Black girls that social tropes often aim to diminish.
Ahead of the competition, which will host a total of 48 contestants in Atlantic City, New Jersey, Entzminger emphasized the power of forging platforms where culture and advocacy collide.
Standing tall, in a glowing red dress at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center, the reigning beauty queen prompted a call to build a vision for America that’s stronger than its past.
“I think that once you understand where real beauty is, you can take off this mask,” she told The Informer during the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation’s 55th Annual Legislative Conference. “The platform that I stand on is what I went through…I was always a part of that thought process: ‘As a model, you have to look a certain way,’ but now, to be liberated, natural hair. I love it! It took you all too long to get here, but we’re here to stay, and we’re not going anywhere.”
Beauty queens from Ms. Senior DC to Miss Black USA are in agreement––this season of cultural aptitude is a historic nod to Black girl magic, but it’s far more than a moment, and it’s also nothing new.
Before Miss America crowned its first natural hair winner on Sept. 6 (25-year-old Regan Hutsell of Texas), Karen Arrington heralded a similar call to Entzminger when she founded Miss Black USA in 1986, establishing a now 39-year tradition that empowers African American women with skills, scholarship, and foundation to serve in communities around the world.
More than a pageant, what Arrington calls “an empowerment organization,” Miss Black USA birthed an alternative to the negative stereotypes and portrayals of Black women in mainstream media –– a concept that proved pivotal to the founder’s own upbringing attending mainstream pageants.
“Imagine that impact of that one young woman that I saw as a middle schooler…now multiplied by 50,” she told The Informer, “when these young girls see [Black pageant contestants], they will be so inspired, and it will give them sort of the fuel, the fire they need to realize that they can also be whomever they want to be in their lives, and also have a sense of pride.”
A Return to Oneself: ‘Who is She Behind the Sash?‘
With equity and justice at the heart of the pageant circuit, African American contestants often serve a double entendre: they exemplify the principles they aim to uphold.
According to Arrington, as of 2026, 80% of Miss Black USA contestants are in graduate and professional school, a progressive shift from the 62.5% of African American women who held a high school diploma and bachelor’s degree when the pageant was founded in 1986.
Flanked by a legacy of high achievers, contestants’ success stories include ranks of pediatric neurosurgeons, practicing attorneys, African royalty, and modern cultural shapers. To name a few: Nicole Lynn, the trailblazing agent who brokered the highest-paid contract in the NFL (Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts); Megan Piphus Peace, a former Miss Black Tennessee who became the first African American puppeteer on Sesame Street; and, competing as the reigning Miss Black DC this past August, Dr. Chanelle Reynolds, the first-ever diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs lead for the Washington Commanders.
“I just wish that one day we will have that platform where it’s seen as something not unusual, but as the norm because it is the norm,” Arrington told The Informer. “Our mission is about those who want to…make a difference…to uplift and elevate our communities. You’re not always going to see us on a red carpet, but you will see us in a little school in Ghana, or on the streets of Havana, Cuba, or in the markets of Sierra Leone.”
The organization’s founder topped this point with the scoring measure for all pageant contestants and potential winners: not just who she is with the crown, “but who is she behind the sash?”
Exemplars include Myja Gary, the former Miss Black Virginia who took the USA crown in 2021 with a full head of coarse curls, a beaming smile, and a mission to elevate those who look just like her.
“When I think of it being manifested in my life today, I am living everything that I preached, everything that I talked about while I was competing,” said Gary, who served as a pageant coach for the 2026 Miss Black USA in August. “My platform was all about bridging the gap, empowering women, building the next generation of women leaders…I had this vision in my mind, this dream to win Miss Black USA, and everything I did to prepare led me to that moment.”
As Gary sees it, the pipeline to the national stage was as much a gift to the women she hoped to inspire as it was a full-circle return to herself.
The 31-year-old told The Informer she began competing in pageants around age 6, then represented her historically Black institution as Miss North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, before becoming the first Virginia contestant to win the crown of Arrington’s national pageant.
While benefiting from a boost in confidence and leadership skills, the beauty of the journey was celebrating cultural differences and realigning with identity, Gary said, from a growing appreciation for her natural hair and curves to “my melanin, my deep raspy voice… all those things [that] make me the woman I am.”
“Pageantry is just a system, like many other systems, that weren’t built for us to participate. There’s so much conformity that I see that happens with Black women in pageantry because, if not, we’re not accepted,” Gary continued, “and…that’s something that I, myself, and many other women competing are still working to overcome.”
To that point, she joined Entzminger in applauding the historic milestone of Miss America 2026, with the latter crediting the win as especially pertinent in a moment for Black-led platforms to take a stand on what defines societal acceptance.
“‘This has been the journey for me. This is who I am, and those [who] don’t embrace who I am, it’s okay because there’s another audience called our culture that will,’” Entzminger declared. “Congratulations to Miss Texas with the natural hair, because…it’s [what’s on the] inside [that counts], and when you know where it is––oh my God, you can show up, put on your crown, and be the queen that you are.”
When the 68-year-old decided to enter the pageant circuit earlier this year, it came as an opportunity to honor the legacy of her late mother: the Rev. Dr. Mildred A. Spriggs Rush, a former student of Washington Technical Institute and Federal City College, which was later consolidated to form the now University of the District of Columbia (UDC).
Now, as she prepares to take on Miss Senior America next week, Entzminger says honoring her roots is more than the beauty of the genetics that make up her features, but also a full-circle reflection of the love, loss and community that keeps her standing today.
“My root is to know who God is for myself. That’s the strength, that’s the faith,” said the UDC alumna, acknowledging her mother’s background in ministry and the resilience within her family. “It’s community, all of that. Without that support, there is no Miss Senior DC Betty Entzminger.”
