Mix Media Tribute to Miss Black America Pageant

At AAHMSNJ Atlantic City (Noyes Arts Garage of Stockton University)

2200 Fairmount Avenue, Atlantic City, NJ 08401

FREE. Donations are encouraged.

The African American Heritage Museum of Southern New Jersey (AAHMSNJ) will host new exhibit entitled “Miss Black America” in Atlantic City, the place the pageant was first held in 1968.  The exhibit will feature repurposed artwork by late Philadelphia artist Robert R. Jackson. The collection will be on display from August 1 to September 29, 2024at the Noyes Art Garage of Stockton University (2200 Fairmount Avenue, Atlantic City, NJ 08401). 

The exhibit features mix-media artwork that Jackson created to reflect the legacy of the Miss Black America pageant. A self-proclaimed “trash picker,” artist Robert R. Jackson had a talent for transforming forgotten junk into beautiful pieces of artwork. Jackson died in 2023 at 90 years old.

In 2019, the African American Heritage Museum acquired Jackson’s sculptures depicting Atlantic City’s Miss America pageant which was governed by a discriminatory policy excluding Black contestants. AAHMSJ Founder and president Ralph Hunter always envisioned upcycling Jackson’s pieces devoted to Miss Black America into a showcase for the groundbreaking pageant that got its start in Atlantic City in 1968.

The Miss America Pageant was viewed by more than two thirds of America’s television watchers during its peak in the 1960s and 70s. Considered an annual American tradition, the pageant showcased the beauty and talents of female contestants from all fifty states. The pageant’s guidelines, specifically Rule Number 7, which dated back to the 1930s, stated that the contestant “must be in good health and of the white race.” This race-based exclusion led to J. Morris Anderson creating his own pageant for Black women. With the backing of the regional NAACP, on August 17, 1968, the first Miss Black America pageant was held on the same day as its White counterpart. The pageant received nationwide press for its protest of White beauty standards and in 1970, Cheryl Brown, became the first Black woman to compete in the Miss America Pageant. Subsequently in 1984, Vanessa Williams became the first Black woman to win the Miss America Pageant.

Born in 1932 in Sparrows Point, Maryland to creative parents, Jackson moved to Philadelphia at the age of eight. He attended the Philadelphia Industrial School of Art where he studied commercial advertising. After serving in the army in the 1950s, Jackson worked for Smith Kline and French Pharmaceuticals as a medical illustrator. Beyond illustration, Jackson excelled in other mediums such as printmaking and mixed media.