IN 1983, VANESSA WILLIAMS
made history by becoming the first black woman to win the Miss America title.
In 1984, Williams made history again by becoming the first woman of any color to relinquish the title before the end of her reign. That happened-as practically everyone knows-because Williams posed for a series of sexually explicit photographs that appeared in Penthouse magazine. Feeling that such an act degraded the squeaky clean image of Miss America, the people who ran the Miss America Pageant asked Williams to resign. They also asked her to autograph their copies of Penthouse and to perform as an exotic dancer at the pageant's Christmas party.
Following the downfall of Vanessa Williams, an important question has arisen. It's a question to which the Pope, the President of the United States and Dan Rather want an answer. They want to know if Miss Black America would be forced to forfeit her title if nude or sexually explicit photographs of her appeared in a magazine.
The answer, according to the Miss Black America Pageant founder and president, is "Unequivocally no,". In his Philadelphia offices, which are decorated with posters of nude women playing chess with geese, J. Morris Anderson articulated his position on the issue of Miss Black America posing in her birth day suit.
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"Just about everybody who lived there worked in a catsup factory. From the time they were born until the time they died, the folks who lived in that town were told that mustard is sinful ." |
"If Miss Black America poses for nude photographs," he said, "That's okay with me. If she performs in a porno movie, that's okay with me, too.
This is a very liberal organization, and we rarely frown upon anything Miss Black America. does."
"However," Anderson added, biting his nose for emphasis, "there is one thing we absolutely refuse to tolerate. We are morally opposed to mustard, and we will dethrone any Miss Black America who becomes involved with it in any way during her reign."
Anderson, who resembles a combination of Prince, Mike Tyson, and a bowl of lumpy oatmeal, revealed that his moral opposition to mustard stems from his sordid experiences with it. "I was born and reared in a small town in South Carolina," he explained. "Just about everybody who lived there worked in a catsup factory.
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