Courtney Pearson, a senior year English major at the University of Mississippi, has a lot to be excited about after being crowned homecoming queen. While typically announcing a queen wouldn’t be worthy of national coverage, what makes this unique is that Pearson is the university’s first black homecoming queen.
“I am still in shock, but I am definitely very excited,” she told the media. “It couldn’t have come at a better time.”
Ole Miss had a strict segregation policy and did not start admitting students until James Meredith enrolled in 1962. Even after being admitted to the school, he and fellow black students faced stiff opposition and violence from white students, community members and even Ross Barnett, the Governor of Mississippi. Now, on the 50th anniversary of desegregation, the school celebrates its first black homecoming queen.
Even with the increase in prominent black figures rising to positions of leadership in politics, business, entertainment and education, there is still a negative undertone throughout many parts of the country. The idea that the student election was gamed as to make a joke of the contest has also been spreading quickly across the internet.
Not only is Pearson the first black queen for Ole Miss, but she is also the first plus sized queen, which goes against quite a few peoples idea of beauty. It is uncertain if the election rigging was racially motivated, fat bashing, an insensitive prank, or just complete nonsense. One thing is for certain though, it really doesn’t matter now. Pearson fulfilled her dream, the mold for homecoming queen has been broken and will likely and hopefully remain that way.
Even if the theory proves true, there are strong signs that Ole Miss as a school has evolved quite a bit from their historically unflattering roots. Long gone is the chant “The South will rise again”, confederate flags at sporting events, and even the school mascot, Colonel Reb. There were many replacement mascots thought up such as a blues musician, horse, land shark, titan, and even a riverboat pilot. But, it was a bear that ended winning the student panel election, a black bear at that.
Appearing racially bias is the last thing the University of Mississippi wants to be seen as. The school now has more than a 16% black student population which includes the current and first Associated Student Body President, Kim Dandridge. No self-proclaimed Ole Miss supporter will want to hinder the university’s ability to recruit talented and gifted academic achievers, student athletes, or quality faculty.
After finally turning the tables on sexism and racism, we are now in a society of fat-ism. But, Pearson doesn’t seem fazed as she happily and confidently tells others the motivation that drove her to compete and win.
“As a child, I had a conversation with the son of a family friend,” Pearson said. “We sat and looked through a magazine one day and the front cover had a bigger, African-American young lady on the cover who had been announced as homecoming queen at some university. The young man did not find this young lady very attractive and he asked how in the world is she homecoming queen.
“As we kept reading, we found out that the homecoming queen at the particular university was chosen from the women who had the highest grade-point averages. This young man, who often had something sarcastic to say about my academic excellence, looked and me and said, ‘Maybe your grades will get you somewhere one day, because your looks sure won’t.’ That was probably be best motivation I could have had.”
“It was undoubtedly a struggle, but it was worth it,” she said. “I did things that I thought I was too shy to do. I realized that I was a pretty good public speaker. And the most important thing I did was work hard.”