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Podcast: Today In History with The Retrospectors
Episode: Vanessa Williams vs. Miss America
Description: The first Black Miss America, Vanessa Williams, was crowned in Atlantic City on 17th September, 1983, with the usual fanfare. But within ten months, she had returned her crown, following a nude photo scandal.
She had already received hate mail and even death threats - some from racist whites who hated seeing a Black Miss America, others from Black critics who felt her light skin and blue eyes played into white beauty standards. But then, without her consent, Penthouse announced it would publish explicit photos of Vanessa taken years earlier when she was an aspiring teenage model.Â