Miss America Protest (1968): Feminists in Atlantic City

The Miss America protest took place on 7 September 1968, when a group of feminists demonstrated on the boardwalk outside the Miss America pageant in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Organised by New York Radical Women, the protest used street theatre, including a “Freedom Trash Can” and a sheep crowned as Miss America, to criticise the pageant’s standards of beauty. It was one of the first actions of the women’s liberation movement to gain national attention, and the press coverage created the enduring myth that feminists burned their bras.

Background

Women’s activism in the United States was growing in the late 1960s. Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique had criticised the confinement of women to the role of housewife, and the National Organization for Women was founded in 1966. Younger women who had worked in the civil rights and anti-war movements were forming more radical groups, frustrated at being sidelined by men in those movements.

New York Radical Women was one such group, founded in 1967. Its members practised “consciousness-raising”, in which women shared personal experiences to understand common patterns of discrimination. During one discussion Carol Hanisch suggested a protest against Miss America, a hugely popular televised pageant that, for many in the group, symbolised how women were judged by their looks.

The protest on the boardwalk

On the afternoon of 7 September 1968, the night the new Miss America was crowned, between about 100 and 400 women, according to differing accounts, gathered on the boardwalk outside Convention Hall. Some had come by bus from New York; others came from cities along the East Coast. Many carried placards with slogans such as “No More Miss America” and “Welcome to the Miss America Cattle Auction”.

The centrepiece was the Freedom Trash Can. Protesters threw in bras, girdles, false eyelashes, curlers, high-heeled shoes, mops and copies of magazines such as Playboy, Cosmopolitan and Ladies’ Home Journal. They also crowned a live sheep, mocking the way contestants were paraded and judged. In keeping with the group’s beliefs, organisers spoke only to women reporters.

Their leaflet, “No More Miss America!”, listed ten objections. It attacked the pageant for its racism, since no Black woman had ever competed; for sending Miss America to entertain troops in Vietnam; for its commercial sponsors; and for promoting an ideal of youth, beauty and passivity that women could never meet.

That evening a few protesters who had bought tickets unfurled a banner reading “Women’s Liberation” from the balcony during the broadcast and shouted slogans before being removed. Judith Ford of Illinois was crowned Miss America 1969.

The bra-burning myth

No bras were burned in Atlantic City. The organisers had hoped to set the Freedom Trash Can alight, but they did not have permission, and fire on the wooden boardwalk would have been dangerous. A New York Post article by Lindsy Van Gelder, written before the event, compared the planned protest to anti-war activists burning their draft cards, and other journalists repeated the idea. The phrase “bra-burner” soon became a common, often mocking, label for feminists, although few, if any, protests ever involved burning bras.

Miss Black America

On the same night, the first Miss Black America pageant was held in Atlantic City, organised by the Philadelphia businessman J. Morris Anderson. It challenged Miss America’s all-white line-up. The winner was Saundra Williams of Philadelphia. Miss America did not include a Black contestant until 1970, and Vanessa Williams became the first Black Miss America in 1983.

Consequences and legacy

The protest made “women’s liberation” a household phrase. Newspapers and television across the country reported it, and many women first heard of the new feminist groups through the coverage. Some participants later felt that mocking the contestants had been a mistake and that the protest should have targeted the pageant, not the women taking part.

Feminists returned to Atlantic City for further protests in 1969. Over the following decades the Miss America organisation changed in response to criticism, and in 2018 it dropped the swimsuit competition. The protest is now seen as a starting point of second-wave feminist direct action, alongside later events such as the Women’s Strike for Equality in 1970.

Timeline

• 1966, June: The National Organization for Women is founded.
• 1967: New York Radical Women forms in New York City.
• 1968, August: The group plans the protest and issues “No More Miss America!”.
• 1968, 7 September, afternoon: Protest and Freedom Trash Can on the Atlantic City boardwalk.
• 1968, 7 September, evening: Protesters unfurl a “Women’s Liberation” banner inside Convention Hall; the first Miss Black America pageant is held.
• 1970: Miss America includes a Black contestant for the first time.
• 1983: Vanessa Williams becomes the first Black Miss America.

Why it matters

The 1968 Miss America protest showed how a small group using humour and street theatre could put women’s rights on the national agenda. It also showed how media framing can shape a movement’s image, since the myth of bra-burning has outlived memory of what the protesters actually said.