New Yorker is first black Miss America

By Compiled From Wire Service Dispatches With Analysis From Monitor Correspondents Around The World; Edited By Howard Lafranchi

September 19, 1983

Atlantic City, N.J.

Vanessa Williams of Millwood, N.Y., Saturday night became the first black woman to win the Miss America title. ''This means a lot to me, and I think it means a lot to America,'' said Miss Williams, a junior musical theater major at Syracuse University.

Only a dozen black women have ever participated in the pageant, which was restricted to whites until the late 1950s.