Diasporic ambassadors: Black women, pageants, and building connections across the African diaspora in the late twentieth century

ABSTRACT

The 1965 Hart Cellar Act opened the US borders to African, Latin American, and Caribbean peoples in an unprecedented way. Yet, this migration is an extension of the connections Black people built with each other in the decades before. Black internationalism grew over the course of the twentieth century which laid the foundation for diasporic communities to form across the US in the latter half of the century. In particular, the travel of Black women between Haiti and Chicago helps to explain how a thriving Haitian community formed in the city during the late twentieth century. Black women like Gerthie David, Ms. Haiti 1975, and Marjorie Vincent, Ms. America 1991, exemplify the diasporic ties that were created and strengthened via pageants. This paper argues that Black women used pageants to build diasporic connections (for self and communal interests) and challenge derogatory stereotypes of Blackness and women across the diaspora.

KEYWORDS:

• Haiti
• Chicago
• pageants
• diaspora

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank colleagues Cate Denial, Tamika Nunley, Tessa Sermet, Rudi Batzell, and Tina Groeger for their feedback on this essay in its numerous forms. The author would also like to thank the student research assistants, Paula Pelletier, and Julie Lord for their assistance with this research.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Marjorie Vincent Trip, interview by the author, July 21, 2018.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Courtney Pierre Joseph

Courtney Pierre Joseph (she/her) is an Assistant Professor of History and African American Studies and the inaugural chair of the African American Studies Department at Lake Forest College. Her specializations are in African American history and culture, Haiti and its diaspora, women and gender studies, and hip-hop culture. Joseph earned her PhD in History from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2017. She has spoken at numerous institutions and events, including the DuSable Museum of African American History and the Newberry Library, and the fall 2020 Chicago Humanities Festival. She is collaborating with the Haitian Museum of Chicago to create the first oral history archive dedicated to the Haitian diaspora in Chicago. Dr Joseph is currently working on her first book, titled DuSable's Diaspora: Haiti, Blackness, and Belonging in Chicago, which will be published by University of Texas Press.