Mickey McElya
speaker
374 appearances
1 recordings
1 series
first heard Aug 2026
last heard 3 Aug
Mickey McElya’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 1 in all, peaking in Aug 2026 with 1.
Appearances
Because I think the thing that is so upsetting to many in the NAACP is it appears to be to them a separatist pageant.
That it is not about integrating the Miss America pageant, but that it is about highlighting black separatism, black is beautiful, and creating a completely distinct pageant.
And that to them feels highly antithetical and a real betrayal in many ways to the NAACP's mission.
I wanted to note that it started at midnight because that was a deliberate choice so that reporters could drop by after the white pageant ended.
And the woman who won that year, the Miss Black America pageant, Sondra Williams, she wasn't even crowned until like three in the morning so that the reporters could come and actually cover it.
Right.
You write about this moment that happened some years before, 1955.
This particular detail stopped me cold.
The Miss America telecast debuts, There She Is, the song, and Burt Parks is singing Your Ideal just days after the open casket funeral of Emmett Till.
And you say, there's nothing coincidental about those two events sitting side by side in American life.
Can you say more about what you mean?
You have the debut of, there she is, Miss America.
There she is, your ideal.
At the opening, listeners heard the lyrics.
Many may be familiar with the lyrics.
It's one of those things that sort of lodged in certain generations' minds because it was such a central facet of the culture, even if you weren't a pageant fan.
And those lyrics say, look upon your ideal.
Here is our queen of beauty.
Here is the perfect American girl.
But it is entirely an encouragement to look, to desire, to assess.
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