Miss Juneteenth Austin Scholarship Pageant 2019

Miss Juneteenth is no ordinary pageant. “I call it a pageant with a purpose,” Austin Pageant Officer Tanisha Barnett said. On Sat., June 8, the 39th annual Miss Juneteenth Austin Scholarship Pageant took the For the City Center stage with beauty, grace, and, as Barnett said it, purpose. In celebration of Juneteenth – the holiday commemorating June 19th, 1865, as the abolition of slavery in Texas, two and a half years after the Emancipation Proclamation – the pageant imparts the culture and history of this holiday on young women by fostering education, community, and sisterhood. Its goal shone through each contestant as many maintained platforms of inspiring self-love and self-acceptance for black girls and combating bullying. – Lilli Hime