The Miss Black America pageant is the original competition for young African American women in areas such as speech, talent, style, and poise — it is essentially the black version of the popular Miss America pageant. Throughout the years the pageant has featured and garnered the support of the some of the most prominent artists, activists, performers of our time including Stevie Wonder, Curtis Mayfield, and Oprah Winfrey. With a rich history of over 40 years of excellence, in 2009 the pageant had its "kick off" in Washington, D.C. to rebrand the competition for the new generation. The first teen winner was Ashley Anglin. The first runner up teen was Monet Jackson, a resident of Mitchellville, MD, and Destiny Welch second runner up also a MD resident. The adult winner was DC native and MD resident, Miss Kamilla Collier-Mullin. The first runner up Miss Cherie A. Bryant a northern Virginia resident and the second runner up Miss Janesia Simmons in the adult pageant.

Originally a local Philadelphia area contest to protest the lack of black women in the Miss America pageant, J. Morris Anderson created and produced the Miss Black America Pageant on August 17, 1968 at the Ritz-Carlton in Atlantic City. With support from Phillip H. Savage, Tri-State Director of the NAACP, the pageant received nationwide press coverage as a protest against the Miss America Pageant, an event that Mr. Savage and other NAACP leaders had long condemned for exclusion of black women contestants.

African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans or Afro-Americans, and formerly as American Negroes) are citizens or residents of the United States that have ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa.

African Americans make up the single largest racial minority in the United States. Most African Americans are of West and Central African descent and are descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States. However, some immigrants from African, Caribbean, Central American or South American nations, or their descendants, may be identified or self-identify with the term.

African-American history starts in the 16th century with African slaves who quickly rose up against the Spanish explorer Lucas Vázquez de Ayllón and progresses to the present day, with Barack Obama as the 44th and current President of the United States. Between those landmarks there have been events and issues, both resolved and ongoing, including slavery, racism, Reconstruction, development of the African-American community, participation in the great military conflicts of the United States, racial segregation, and the Civil Rights Movement.

Curtis Lee Mayfield (June 3, 1942 – December 26, 1999) was an African-American soul, R&B, and funk singer, songwriter, and record producer. He is best known for his anthemic music with The Impressions during the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s and for composing the soundtrack to the blaxploitation film Super Fly, Mayfield is highly regarded as a pioneer of funk and of politically conscious African-American music. He was also a multi-instrumentalist who played the guitar, bass, piano, saxophone, and drums. Curtis Mayfield is a winner of both the Grammy Legend Award (in 1994) and the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award (in 1995), and was a double inductee into The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, inducted as a member of The Impressions into The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1991, and again in 1999 as a solo artist. He is also a two-time Grammy Hall of Fame inductee.

Born on June 3, 1942 in Chicago, Illinois, Mayfield was the son of Marion Washington and Kenneth Mayfield. Mayfield's father left the family when Mayfield was five and his mother moved Curtis and his siblings into various Chicago projects before settling at the Cabrini–Green projects when Mayfield reached his teenage years. Mayfield attended Wells Community Academy High School. He dropped out of high school early to become lead singer and songwriter for The Impressions, then went on to a successful solo career. Perhaps most notably, Mayfield was among the first of a new wave of mainstream African-American R&B performing artists and composers injecting social commentary into their work. This "message music" became extremely popular during the 1960s and 1970s.

Oprah Winfrey (born Orpah Gail Winfrey; January 29, 1954) is an American media proprietor, talk show host, actress, producer, and philanthropist. Winfrey is best known for her self-titled, multi-award-winning talk show, which has become the highest-rated program of its kind in history and was nationally syndicated from 1986 to 2011. She has been ranked the richest African-American of the 20th century, the greatest black philanthropist in American history, and was for a time the world's only black billionaire. She is also, according to some assessments, the most influential woman in the world.

Winfrey was born into poverty in rural Mississippi to a teenage single mother and later raised in an inner-city Milwaukee neighborhood. She experienced considerable hardship during her childhood, claiming to be raped at age nine and becoming pregnant at 14; her son died in infancy. Sent to live with the man she calls her father, a barber in Tennessee, Winfrey landed a job in radio while still in high school and began co-anchoring the local evening news at the age of 19. Her emotional ad-lib delivery eventually got her transferred to the daytime-talk-show arena, and after boosting a third-rated local Chicago talk show to first place, she launched her own production company and became internationally syndicated.

Maya Azucena is an American singer-songwriter and cultural ambassador from Brooklyn, NY. She attended the LaGuardia School of Performing Arts. She independently released her debut CD "Maya Who?!" at shows and from her website.

Maya sang a duet with Stephen Marley on his 2007 record Mind Control. Her performance helped the album win the 2008 Grammy Award for Best Reggae Album.

Maya has developed a successful musical relationship with Croatian singer Gibonni. She sang on his 2006 album Unca Fibre, which garnered two Croatian Grammy Awards (aka 'Porin'). Aside from appearing on his records, Maya has joined him in extensive touring and television appearances throughout Europe.

Maya sang with Peruvian American rapper Immortal Technique on the track 'Crimes Of The Heart' from the 2008 album The 3rd World.

In response to the 2010 Haiti Earthquake, Maya sang with emcee Cormega on his tribute song I Made A Difference. The song also featured Redman, The Revelations, and various other artists.

She sings on the new Fitz & The Tantrums album Pickin' Up the Pieces. Maya's Vocals are most prominently featured on the tracks Breakin' The Chains Of Love and Winds Of Change. The album has received critical acclaim and has reached #2 on the Billboard Heatseekers Chart.