New Yorker is first black Miss America
September 19, 1983
Atlantic City, N.J.
Vanessa Williams of Millwood, N.Y., Saturday night became the first black woman to win the Miss America title. ''This means a lot to me, and I think it means a lot to America,'' said Miss Williams, a junior musical theater major at Syracuse University.
Only a dozen black women have ever participated in the pageant, which was restricted to whites until the late 1950s.