Going to School in Black and White

by Cindy Waszak Geary

  I graduated in June with a Hillside diploma, a list of academic honors and accolades, and a big family celebration. I was pleased with it all and settled in for a long and luxurious summer of doing nothing but reading Agatha Christie murder mysteries and hanging out with my friends. I figured I had plenty of time to think about fall classes and making the transition from high school to college.

  But Duke had other plans for me that summer.

  Courtesy of Hillside Hornet Yearbook, 1975

  LaHoma Smith as head majorette at Hillside High School.

  8— The Junior Miss Pageants

  Eight

  The Junior Miss Pageants

  It was a priceless moment when we realized we had both represented Hillside in the Junior Miss pageant, albeit in different years. Though we had started talking about writing this book before that realization, finding that out might have sealed the deal for us both. We each wrote our own story about being in the pageant and shared them with each other afterward.

  Cindy

  What the World Needs Now Is Love: 1972

  Junior Miss was a competition sponsored by the Jaycettes; high school senior girls were asked to participate in recognition of their grade point averages. With about a dozen other girls, I was called into a meeting in the early fall of 1972 by my high school counselor. After hearing the invitation, only two of us decided to take part—my friend, neighbor and future college roommate, Judith, and me. Part of my motivation was the scholarship, and part of it was because the opportunity was flattering. I was proud of my academic achievements.

  I was a bit worried about the talent portion; my artistic abilities were visual, not performance, and I thought it might be a stretch to use them in a competition. I also did not consider myself a beauty, but the Jaycettes stressed that this was not a beauty pageant—its purpose was to identify young women with achievement potential. As neither Judith nor I was involved in other extracurricular activities at school, this was a way for us to try to shine a bit and get some attention. Our mothers were both excited about this opportunity, and they pushed us to participate. I thought it might be a fair fight, though, by the end of it, I had changed my mind about a lot of things.

  The Jaycette organization is the female counterpart to the Jaycees. The Jaycette ladies hosted an evening meeting at one of their homes for all 13 contestants so we could learn more about the pageant and what was expected of us. The Jaycettes were all proper Southern white ladies who did not work outside the home, used their husband’s first names in reference to themselves (as was normal at the time—e.g., “Mrs. John Smith) and supported their husbands as they ascended in their professional careers. Jaycette sponsorship made this meeting newsworthy, and the event was the only occasion warranting my photograph in the newspaper while I was in high school.

  Though the Jaycettes were higher on the social ladder than I was, I did not feel out of place in their homes. My mother was also a proper Southern lady, trained as a home economics teacher during a time when most people entertained formally. I was used to eating Sunday dinner on fine china, and I knew how to set a table and which fork to use when. I had no anxiety about eating the Jaycettes’ dainty sandwiches with the crust cut off, served from silver trays, or drinking punch ladled from a crystal punch bowl. I knew how to behave.

  The contestants—all of whom I liked—also spent time together at a local dance studio over the long Thanksgiving weekend before the pageant. We learned the two routines that were required—one for the physical fitness activity (a more modest substitute for the usual swimsuit competition) and one for the grace and poise activity—what was called the evening gown competition in the Miss America pageant. I quickly realized that the girls who were dancers had a huge advantage over the rest of us.

  The physical fitness competition was a set of choreographed exercises, which we now call aerobic dancing. We wore double-knit stretch pants and matching long sleeve shirts that zipped up the front. We all wore different bright colors but with white belts and white tennis shoes. My outfit was tangerine orange. I shudder to think about it now.

  I enjoyed the evening gown competition much more. It was a dance, but a slower one meant to show us off like belles of the ball, and the muted raspberry, velvet, empire-waist gown that my mother made for me was much more flattering than my fitness routine clothes. I loved that dress more than anything else about the pageant. We all wore satin pumps dyed to match our dresses and white gloves. I wore my long straight hair down and flowing. I felt as beautiful in that dress as I ever had.

  We were told, honest to God, to put Vaseline on our teeth to help us smile. “You’ll be so nervous; it’ll be hard to smile. Your lips will quiver, and the Vaseline will make it easier,” a Jaycette lady told us.

  The preceding summer, I had been exposed to some similar “behind the scenes” beauty pageant communications. The Baptist youth conference I attended occurred in the same venue and simultaneously with rehearsals for the Miss South Carolina pageant. Contestants stayed on several floors above us in our dorm. We could hear the page on the intercom: “Miss Jones, please come to Room 222, and don’t forget to bring your panty girdle,” a disembodied man’s voice crackled.

  Also, we saw contestants at an outdoor cocktail party on campus, where everyone was in business dress except the young women competing for the Miss South Carolina title, who wore only bathing suits and high heels. In my newly awakening feminist world view, I had thought that attire was demeaning to those beautiful women. So when the pageant organizers told us about the Vaseline for our teeth, the suggestion didn’t seem to me as demeaning as being publicly asked to bring your panty girdle to a rehearsal or standing nearly naked in high heels around fully dressed men. Not yet, anyway.

  The weekend before the pageant, we were brought in one at a time for interviews with the judges at an afternoon reception. I wore an emerald green velveteen dress with long, cuffed sleeves, another of my mother’s creations. And my white gloves. Three women and two men, one of them a minister, composed the judge’s panel. The only question I remember being asked was, “If there were a man and a woman who were applying for the same job who were equally qualified, who would you give it to?” I thought it was a ridiculous question, and I do not remember what I said exactly. I must have given a somewhat ambivalent answer, because the follow-up was: “What if the man were married and supported a family, but the woman was not married or supporting a family?” I hesitated, but then gave them the answer it was apparent they wanted.

  I have felt remorse ever since. I knew then the game was rigged. This whole competition was still part of the socialization of women to stay in their places, scholarship or not. My answer was not the appropriate feminist response, nor was being in the pageant the feminist thing to do. Though I felt resistance, I was not psychologically or emotionally equipped at that moment in my life to leave the interview or the pageant. I stayed, Vaseline teeth and all.

  My “talent” was a dramatic reading. So was my friend Judith’s. I recited a medley of 1 Corinthians 13 interspersed with lyrics from the song “What the World Needs Now Is Love (Sweet Love)” by Hal David and Burt Bacharach, made popular by Dionne Warwick in 1966. This New Testament chapter, I Corinthians 13, often read at weddings and referred to as the “love passage,” begins, “If I speak with the eloquence of men and of angels, but have no love, my speech is no more than a noisy gong or a clanging bell.” I wore a long dress of unbleached muslin with dolman sleeves. Mother made this one too, and I wore it often after the pageant. The reading expressed my Christian faith, and the dress was a bow to my hippie aspirations. Love seemed to me to be a safe topic. A piano version of “What the World Needs Now,” played by the choir director from my church, accompanied my reading.

  Contestant numbers were assigned in alphabetical order; as Cindy Stock, I was 13 of 13, so I was the last one to perform and waited nervously for my turn. I did well enough. I did not forget my lines. There was no hint of voice or drama training in my delivery
, there having been none. “I did OK,” I thought, but I knew it was not as impressive as a dance or music performance.

  Judith, contestant No. 3, had recited John Donne’s poem, “No Man Is an Island,” with “Bridge Over Troubled Waters” in the background. We were both glad to have this part of the competition behind us. She had done a creditable job as well.

  My father missed the pageant, which was a disappointment to me. My paternal grandmother, Augusta Stock, died several days before the event. She lived in Iowa, and I had not spent much time with her. She had sent me letters quite frequently and always on my birthday, with a dollar bill or two enclosed (which she called “leaves of lettuce”). There was no discussion of the whole family going to the funeral, pageant or not. My father went by himself, flying (a rare event) there and back over the weekend. Daddy usually took the family photographs, and because he was not at the pageant, I have no personal pictures from the event, only the newspaper photos, the program, and my contestant number to remind me of this transformative moment in my life.

  The other bit of pageant-related drama was the appearance of my ex-boyfriend, Mitch. He started dating someone else almost immediately after he broke up with me that fall, and he brought her to the pageant! I saw him outside the auditorium when it was over. Though I was angry, I was polite in front of his new girlfriend, defaulting to my Southern lady training.

  The Junior Miss pageant gave me some experience of the world and taught me a few things I might not have known otherwise. I met some girls from other schools and got a glimpse into the lives of the Jaycettes. It made me feel special—being invited, wearing pretty clothes. The discomfort I felt about the version of reality the pageant constructed about girls and women was a seed planted for later harvesting.

  All the girls in the pageant that year were white. I have no idea of the racial composition of the girls invited to participate, but if there had been any black girls from Hillside or any other high schools, none of them chose to accept the invitation. I now wonder what barriers to their participation they felt. At that time, I was overwhelmed myself about the class and gender implications and never really got to a critique of the racial bias that resulted in all white participants, or all white Jaycettes for that matter.

  Discussions today about race typically are focused on unconscious racial bias and white privilege—very different from the way we talked about race in the 1970s, which was almost all about stereotyping and civil rights. I did not think there were prohibitions about including black girls in the pageant. No black girls were there, though, and I did not question why.

  LaHoma

  You Gotta Have Somethin’: 1974

  I never missed watching the nationally televised Miss America beauty pageant. I loved watching the contestants parade out in their beautiful gowns, hairstyles, and perfect bodies. “There she is ...Miss America…” the white male host would sing “…Miss Alabama, Miss Alaska… Miss New York, Miss South Carolina…” With heads and busts held high in flawless fashion, all would walk onto the stage as the world watched “…There she is…your ideal…” the host crooned. The dreams of a million girls—I watched every second with envy and desire.

  Sometimes my mother would pop her head in to ask: “How does Miss North Carolina look?” I would scan the girl in question and give my rapid assessment of her chances compared to the competition, never taking my eyes off the screen. If you could wish for one thing, Miss Kentucky, what would it be?... Batting long, curly eyelashes over those clear blue eyes, she did not skip a beat: “World peace,” she would say (or something equally formulaic), and “save all the little children from hunger.” “Nailed it,” I thought, applauding my favorite.

  I often wondered how those girls were discovered. Were they standing in line waiting for the bus or in a supermarket when someone walked up to them and declared they were the most beautiful girl in that city or state and sent them on their way to the national competition? Would the girls sit at home minding their own business, and someone would knock on their doors to inquire about the beautiful young ladies who lived there?

  One thing was certain, though. In order to be noticed, you had to be white. Not that I expected the pageants to include girls of color, given that there were so few black women on television in general. So, even after watching the pageant every year, I never pictured myself entering a pageant of any kind.

  I imagined that these women simply appeared, picked from obscurity to be placed on the world stage because of their amazing good looks, overflowing talents, and radiant smiles. So, when my high school guidance counselor asked me to consider entering the Durham Junior Miss Pageant, I was speechless. Me!? A pageant?!

  Mr. Lawrence, a middle-age black man responsible for advising students on their college and career choices, convinced me that it was not a joke and was even a good way for me to earn scholarship money for college. Besides, the Junior Miss pageant was not a beauty pageant but rather a talent and academic achievement pageant. I had never thought about the pageants as a way to win money for college. I had paid attention only to the cars, jewelry, clothes, and modeling contracts that they featured for the winners.

  As he showed me information about the Durham pageant, I wondered again if Mr. Lawrence was just teasing me, because only white girls were pictured on the flyers. But he told me that the pageant sponsors, the Jaycettes, wanted girls from Hillside to apply, girls like me, and he thought I would be a good representative.

  Mr. Lawrence had submitted my name the previous year for an article on outstanding students in Durham. I had been the only black student featured on the cover of the newspaper. Because that had turned out all right for me, I trusted Mr. Lawrence and agreed to talk to my parents, even though I felt sure that the Jaycettes really meant that they only wanted the white students from Hillside.

  I went home after school and talked it over with my parents.

  Was there a cost? No.

  Would I have to buy anything? Not really.

  What would I have to do? Complete the application, participate in a number of promotional and educational events, get an evening gown to wear, practice a couple of dance numbers, participate in the pageant—and perform a talent.

  What talent would you do? I don’t know, maybe dancing, or playing the piano or twirling the baton.

  And for sending in an application and participating in those activities, I might win scholarship money? Yes.

  My parents, finally satisfied, said, “Yes.”

  I entered my name and received generally positive feedback from my parents, neighbors, and teachers. An article about the pageant appearing in the Durham Morning Herald, featuring me and a couple of the white contestants, helped to generate more interest and curiosity from my friends. Most of my friends were indifferent, since they believed, as I did, that a black girl didn’t stand a chance of winning.

  As I prepared for the competition in October, I wasn’t nervous because I never believed I could win. I told myself that I was going through the motions to please my guidance counselor, Mr. Lawrence. It also felt as if this whole thing was yet another in a series of experiments in Durham. Given that this was the first year that the organization had actually recruited any black girls, we didn’t expect much, and I think the adults were just glad to see more evidence of Durham’s progress in bringing the races together.

  The Jaycettes were always so polite; in fact, I had never met ladies that polite. Were they real? Perhaps I was just not used to being around middle-age white women, but I could not tell whether they were just being nice, as Southern ladies are inclined to be, or whether they were tolerating us for the sake of appearances.

  I tried to imagine any of them getting angry or raising their voices to their children the way my mother and teachers often would display their dissatisfaction with us. It never happened. All the Jaycettes were kind and gentle, and they were probably just as uncomfortable as we were. Another step to racial unification in Durham. But all that didn’t matter much to me, and
I was immune to their genteel manners. I was used to outdoor camping and working in tobacco fields. My mother, my grandmother, my aunts, and the women in my neighborhood were real, and these women were not. But they were nice and polite, and they were helping me to be in a real-life pageant!

  Each participant had a Jaycettes sponsor, whose job was to make sure that all of our needs were attended to for the pageant. I think mine kind of felt sorry for me, since we all knew that I was going to lose. In fact, two of the 12 girls participating that year were black. The other black girl, Delores, attended one of the predominantly white county high schools. We never talked much. We didn’t have time during our practices, and because we went to different high schools, we never connected beyond “hello” and “goodbye.”

  I think we were both surprised we were participating, but I never reached out to her, or she to me. My feeling was that I knew I was going to lose, and I didn’t want to agonize too much about that. If Delores didn’t know they’d never pick a black girl, I wasn’t going to be the one to tell her.

  Finally the big night arrived. My mother had bought me a new dress for the evening gown segment, and I felt really special. Because I knew I couldn’t win, I did not feel the pressure that some of the other girls seemed to be experiencing. I had spent a lot of time preparing my individual talent performance—twirling my baton—so that I would not embarrass family, my Hillside or myself. My mother had made a spectacular outfit for the performance, and I was excited to be showing it off to the world. Because of my years in the band, I was accustomed to performing in front of large audiences.

  The others girls were floating around, nervous, talkative, biting nails, twisting strands of hair— all in anticipation that they would be named Durham’s Junior Miss. I was happy the day had arrived because it was the end to the crazy schedule of fitting these practices into my already hectic life as a senior at Hillside.