The Miss Black America pageant

Beauty contest

A beauty pageant or beauty contest, is a competition that mainly focuses on the physical beauty of its contestants, although such contests often incorporate personality, talent, and answers to judges' questions as judged criteria...

 is a competition for young African American

African American

African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...

 women in areas such as speech, talent, style, and poise — it is essentially the black version of the popular Miss America

Miss America

The Miss America pageant is a long-standing competition which awards scholarships to young women from the 50 states plus the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands...

 pageant. In 2009 the pageant had its "kick off" in Washington, D.C. to rebrand the competition after 40 years. The first teen winner was Ashley Anglin. The first runner up teen was Monet Jackson, a resident of Mitchellville, MD, and Destiny Welch second runner up also a MD resident.