Black Beauty: African American Women and Pageant Culture

This Week in Black History, Society, and Culture

In this episode, Dr. Hettie V. Williams, Assistant Professor of African American history at Monmouth University, is in conversation with Dr. Shirley Crenshaw, a science professional with several years of experience teaching at the college level, about her life on the pin-up pageant circuit. The vast amount of scholarly literature on pageant culture in the African American experience tends to focus on the American South but Dr. Crenshaw who hails from the Mid-West provides us with a different perspective. This discussion also covers issues of race, gender, and sexuality giving us some insight into how some Black women view life in the pageant world as an identity making resource.