Watch the moment Cheslie Kryst is crowned as the 2019 Miss USA in the video below.
Video credit: Miss USA
For the first time ever, three black women possess the titles of Miss America, Miss USA, and Miss Teen USA pageants.
The historic triple was completed on Thursday when Cheslie Kryst, a North Carolina lawyer, won the Miss USA crown.
Kryst joins pageant winners of 2019 Miss Teen USA, Kaliegh Garris, and 2019 Miss America, Nia Franklin.
Thomas DeFrantz, a professor in the Department of African and African American Studies at Duke University, said of the historic moment: ‘The three young women who have focused their energy on demonstrating how standards of black beauty speak for American standards of beauty are to be commended.’
‘These three standard-bearers prove that black beauty is at the heart of a 21st century American ideal,’ DeFrantz added.
Garris, who wishes to become a trauma nurse and hails from New Haven, Connecticut, was crowned in April.
New York-based Franklin won the Miss America crown in September in Atlantic City, becoming the first woman to win the title without having to wear a swimsuit.
Kryst, who holds an MBA from Wake Forest University and works as an attorney at Poyner Spruill LLP in Charlotte, completed the historic triple by winning the title in Reno, Nevada.
‘Mine is the first generation to have that forward-looking mindset that has inclusivity, diversity, strength and empowered women,’ Kryst said after accepting the crown.
‘I’m looking forward to continued progress in my generation,’ the former Division I athlete added.
She is now hoping to participate in the Miss Universe pageant.
The Miss America competition, which started in 1921, is the oldest of the three. Until the 1940’s, African American women weren’t allowed to contest in it due to a rule which said participants must belong to ‘the white race.’
Cheryl Browne was the first woman of color to contest in the Miss America pageant in 1970.
Though dozens of black women participated in the competition after Browne, the first African American to win the Miss America pageant was actress Vanessa Williams, who was crowned in 1983.
The Miss USA competition, which was started in 1952, was won by a black woman – Carole Anne-Marie Gist – for the first time ever in 1990.
Next year in 1991, Janel Bishop was crowned as the first black Miss Teen USA.
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