Sale 2503 - Printed & Manuscript African Americana, March 28, 2019

136 c   (BEAUTY.) Archive of the first Miss Black America, Saundra Williams, including her trophy. 31 items, various sizes and conditions, some with moderate wear. Vp, bulk 1968-69 [2,500/3,500] The Miss Black America competition was founded in reaction to the largely segregated Miss America. The first pageant was held in Atlantic City, NJ on 7 September 1968—just across town from the Miss America pageant on the same day. The first winner was Saundra Lillian Williams of Philadelphia, a junior sociology major at Maryland State College. Offered here are mementos of her time as Miss Black America: her scrapbook, her photographs, and her iconic trophy. The scrapbook contains 15 items on 8 leaves, mostly original newspaper clippings relating to the competition. Other highlights are a small poster for the 1969 pageant held in Madison Square Garden (with Williams prominently featured as reigning queen), 2 congratulatory notes, her 1966 high school diploma, and her 1971 wedding invitation. A box of loose papers includes 14 photographs of Williams, most about 8 x 10 inches, including 2 duplicates, some from her appearance at the 1969 pageant * A thank-you note after her appearance on the Philadelphia television program Blackbook, 2 October 1968 * Schedule for a personal appearance, 27 November 1968 * Her signed contract with the Miss Black America Corporation, 28 January 1969 * Photocopy of the lyrics to the song “Miss Black America” by Curtis Mayfield * The official participant’s schedule for the 1969 pageant * Volume 1, issue 1 of the magazine Miss Black America * 7 newspaper clippings * and an original typescript poem read by Williams at the pageant titled “Awareness” which concludes “For Black, Black is my color / And my hair is kinky and brown / My nose is wide and my lips are thick / but never again will I hold my head down,” [1968]. Two items date from after her marriage, as Sandi Stovall: a résumé from circa 1986, and a clipping of a newspaper interview circa 1991. Finally, the trophy: 21 inches high, with a marble base 3 x 7 inches wide, a vase, a crown made of red cloth, metal, and rhinestones, topped by a statuette. The plaque reads “Sandra Williams, Miss Black America, 1968.” The trophy has some minor wear including a skillful repair, the loss of two wings on a little bird on the base, and the loss of a few rhinestones from the crown. It still presents well as the iconic first Miss Black America trophy.