Miss Black America Beauty Pageant Contest records

This collection includes collected correspondence, clippings, fliers, and other planning and promotional documents removed from a scrapbook documenting this inaugural pageant held in Asbury Park, New Jersey, in 1969, ultimately won by Shirley Washington. Other materials include applications for contest entry, the official contest song, letters of inquiry to churches seeking eligible contestants between the ages of eighteen and twenty-one, an organizational structure chart, a telegraph from an NAACP representative disavowing any relationship with any Miss Black America organization, templates and layouts for the official program, and photographs of the contest participants.