Main Menu

                   
             
                           
           
               
               
       
       
Streetz 877

Miss USA 2020 is the first Black woman to represent Mississippi

Post on: November 11, 2020
0

The first Black woman to be crowned Miss Mississippi USA is now the reigning Miss USA.

Asya Branch, Miss USA 2020 winner, wearing the ???Power of Positivity??? Crown, presented by Mouawad, the official crown sponsor of the 2020 Miss USA competition at the Miss USA Competition, on November 7, 2020 at Graceland in Memphis Tennessee.

Asya Branch, a student at the University of Mississippi and Booneville native, was crowned Miss USA on Monday, after the coronavirus pandemic delayed the event by several months. She’ll go on to represent the US in the Miss Universe pageant.

Branch shared her historic win with Miss Teen USA 2020 Ki’ilani Arruda, only the second Hawaiian woman to win the teen pageant. In an interview with Miss Mississippi USA, Branch revealed her father was incarcerated for 10 years. His experience inspired her to advocate for criminal justice reform, and in 2018 she met with President Donald Trump and other officials to discuss measures to help reintegrate former prisoners into society upon their release.

Asya Branch was in disbelief when she was crowned Miss USA 2020, asking herself afterward, “What just happened?”

“I learned a lot about myself, but at the same time, while sharing my story and going through so much but not letting it stop me, I’ve been able to heal while also helping others find their way,” she said in the September interview.

The pageant was originally scheduled for spring 2020 but, like many other large-scale events around that time, was canceled due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Picking up production this fall, the Miss Universe Organization that runs Miss USA followed some coronavirus protocols: Contestants wore bejeweled masks when they were offstage and when they visited landmarks like the National Civil Rights Museum, and audience members at Graceland were told to wear masks indoors and submit to temperature checks, according to the facility. Graceland didn’t mention social distancing within the facility in its Covid-19 protocols.
On hand for Branch’s crowning was Cheslie Kryst, Miss USA 2019. Kryst’s reign was the the first time that winners of the top beauty pageants — Miss USA, Miss Teen USA, Miss America and Miss World — were all Black women.
Tags: cnnmiss usastreetz877

Related articles

No comments

© Copyright Core Communications. All rights reserved.