‘Auntie power’ uplifts contestants at the Miss Juneteenth pageant in Pierce County

As Destiny Bass began speaking on stage, the wind began to blow.

A few women hurried on stage to stop Bass’s props and script from blowing away. One kneeled and raised the script above her head for Bass to read, while the other held Bass’s prop in front of her.

Bass, who was sharing her story as a woman of color in the white-dominated sport of softball in a team uniform, never took her eyes off of the audience. The crowd cheered as she finished.

These women in black T-shirts from the organization Community Aunties spent two to three months helping prepare the seven contestants of this year’s Miss Juneteenth Pageant & Scholarship Program, hosted as part of the Juneteenth celebration at Stewart Heights Park on June 19. Miss Juneteenth 2024 is the second annual pageant following an inaugural event last year.

Armed with various skills, pageantry experience and what they describe as “auntie power,” these aunties have banded together to empower future generations of Black girls and validate them through personal attention, care and resources.

“Even if the girls don’t win a crown, they win something more valuable, and that’s a sense of camaraderie and community that they feel seen and they know that we can belong here,” Maricres Castro, one of the aunties, said.

Castro, the former Miss Washington U.S. International, uses her experience in pageantry to teach the contestants how to walk for a pageant, she said.

The tents where the contestants prepared for different segments of the pageant were abuzz with activity and pep talks from the aunties to the contestants. The pageant program included introductions to the candidates and their social cause platforms, talent acts including poetry readings and dance numbers, gown parades and answers to on-stage questions.

DeVaughnn Williams, another auntie, said that her role as an auntie means zipping up dresses, keeping the girls pumped up, and keeping extras on her person for the big day, like earrings, Q-tips and safety pins.

“Right now, I have an auntie, her name is Daisha,” Bass, who is a junior at Lincoln High School, said. “We all got our own aunties. She is so awesome. All of them have been so sweet.”

The aunties also secure funds to help young women of color access what can be an expensive activity. Community Aunties founder Amanda Scott-Thomas said the aunties find ways to pay for dresses and hotel expenses.

Community Aunties is donor-funded, but the organization is looking for grants to make the program more sustainable in the future and to include leadership development as part of their programming, according to another auntie, Atiya Canley.

The Miss Juneteenth pageant is also a scholarship program. All contestants received a $1,000 scholarship and $500 in stocks, with the three finalists receiving higher scholarship amounts. There was also a $150 cash award for two Sisterhood Award recipients, nominated by their fellow contestants for embodying sisterhood.

This year’s contestants were Camille Mcvea, Derriyona Crocklem, Khamai White, Naomi Wyrick, Kamijah Stevenson, Destiny Bass and Serenity Sullivan.

Bass was crowned Miss Juneteenth 2024, with White finishing as first runner-up and Wyrick as second runner-up. Crocklem and Stevenson received the Sisterhood Awards.

The aunties have recruited girls for the pageant just by being out in the community. Jayde Little, the winner of last year’s Miss Juneteenth pageant and one of the speakers at this year’s event, said she met Scott-Thomas at a hair salon and then decided to apply based on the information Scott-Thomas sent her.

Ellessea Miller, White’s mother, said her wife was serving as a D.J. at an event in Tacoma when she heard about the pageant from an auntie who came to the event.

“She said over the mic: ‘I have a daughter and she’s going to be great for it,’” Miller said. “And so we ended up signing up.”

This is White’s second year participating in the Miss Juneteenth pageant. Miller said she has seen her daughter grow more confident because of the friendship and community the girls have built together.

“They’re supporting each other, they are helping each other down the stairs, they’re offering tips to each other to help them improve,” Miller said. “So I’m seeing her so much more comfortable with (this) group of girls and just being herself more.”

Suzanne Stevenson was visiting family in Tacoma from Louisiana and came to the Juneteenth celebration at Stewart Heights Park. She became emotional talking about her impressions of the pageant.

“I think it gives the Black community a voice to show what they really have … the youth have so much more to offer,” Stevenson said. “They really do. And so this is a platform where they can show that.”