Miss America Protest

The Miss America protest was a demonstration at the Miss America Pageant on September 7, 1968 by about 400 feminists and separately, by civil rights advocates. The feminist protest, organized by New York Radical Women, included tossing a collection of symbolic feminine products, pots, false eyelashes, mops, and other items into a trash can on the Atlantic City Boardwalk. They did not just burn bras. When the protesters also successfully unfurled a large banner emblazoned with "Women's Liberation" inside the contest hall, they drew world-wide media attention. The demonstration and the media coverage it drew was largely responsible for drawing national attention to the Women’s Liberation Movement. A reporter covering the protest drew an analogy between the feminist protesters and Vietnam War protesters who burned their draft cards, and the bra-burning trope was erroneously and permanently attached to the event and became a catch-phrase of the feminist era.

A less-well known protest was also organized on the same day by Civil Rights activist J. Morriss Anderson. It was held at the Ritz Carlton Hotel a few blocks from the Miss America pageant. They crowned the first Miss Black America.