What comes to mind when you think of Miss America?  If you are of the same vintage as I, it’s probably Bert Parks, swimsuits, pretty faces, and folks who weren’t always the brightest.

But, this pageant started way back in the 1920s, awarding a single (yes, it IS for single) woman between the ages of 17 and 24 a scholarship.  And, an opportunity to travel across the US to promote goodwill.

I don’t recall my family watching this much beyond my preteen years, but I think they watched it because way back in 1945, Bess Meyerson won the contest.  As a Jewish lass who refused to change her name (as the organization requested),  her stand piqued my family’s interest.  (You should note that Bess was unable to stay at most of the hotels chosen by the organization and missed out on many corporate endorsements.    As I found when I first moved to the South two decades later, the concept of ‘No Coloreds, No Jews, and No Dogs’ was the prevalent theme.)

And, the year of my birth, Yolande Betbeze won the contest.  While she was a convent-educated. Alabama lass, she certainly did not fit the mold of Miss America- or a Southern lass.  (She was the first winner to come from the State of Alabama.)

Yolande refused to pose for bathing suit photos (can you imagine that?  Or a Sports Illustrated without their cheesecake photos?).  Officially, she had “forgotten” to sing the contract that obligated her to wear the bathing suits.  (Yeah, right.)   (By the way, Catalina – the bathing suit supplier for the pageant- was so angry with her, it started the competing Miss USA and Miss Universe pageants in protest.  And, yes, these were the organizations that Donald Trump owned from 1998 thorough 2015.)

She picketed for civil rights and was disgusted that the pageant excluded Blacks.  She demonstrated at Sing Sing Prison (NY State) to protest the execution of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, who were convicted (rightly?  wrongly?) for exposing atomic secrets to the Soviets.  She even considered running for Congress from Alabama- except her NAACP membership would have to lapse for that to occur.  And, it didn’t- so she didn’t.

What I remembered was her picketing at Woolworths in New York City (the theater district, to be precise) for refusing to serve Blacks in 1960. She also was very active in Democratic Party fundraising and lived in Georgetown (Washington, DC), participating in the Party circuit there.

She did marry Martin Fox after her stint as Miss America, which brought much wealth, privileges, and contacts.  (Her friends were Elizabeth Taylor, Marlene Dietrich, and Clark Clifford- who actually became the godfather to her only child.)

Yolande Fox was born 28 November 1928 and died on Washington’s Birthday this year.   Proof that Miss America can, indeed, break out of the mold and try to make this country just a little bit better.

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