By RayJaun Stelly, The Seattle Medium
Supporting women of color, the Miss Black USA Organization, the first and largest pageant to do so, has awarded over $500,000 in scholarships. The pageant prioritizes empowering women to own their power and celebrate unique talents, traits, and beauty. Ashely Wells had been waiting for this opportunity to participate and the wait is over as Wells was crowned 2023 Miss Black Washington USA.
“A few weeks after I turned 25 years old, I honestly had a mini of a quarter-life crisis,” said Wells. “I remember sitting down with myself one day and asking, ‘is there anything that you want to do or accomplish that you haven’t had the chance to do yet?”
Miss Black USA represents defining your standard of beauty while celebrating the whole woman, mind, body, and spirit, all shades of brown, hair texture, and size. The mission behind this pageant is to provide a national stage for participants to display their talents and beauty, with an opportunity to win a scholarship.
Securing a broadcast deal with FoxSoul.tv, the organization has a longstanding list of continuous accolades from being the first and largest pageant for women of color and largest source of scholarship funding for women of color. Miss Black USA has helped put young women in position to be successful in fields such as education, law, medicine, and entertainment. In addition to that, being the first and only United States-based national pageant to hold its event on the continent of Africa, and having a library named in honor of the organization at Lower Basic Primary School in West Africa.
Aside from the individual success they help curate, they are national minority partner of the Heart Truth campaign, which is meant to empower women to take care of their heart health, and since their partnership began they helped raise awareness of the campaign by over 70%.
Self-reflecting on her journey, a pageant was the only thing on Wells’ mind, considering she has always wanted to participate in one since being a young girl. But keeping her focus on studies throughout high school and college, the timing didn’t seem like it was going to align until last year.
Beginning her journey as a Ph.D. student in American Studies and Culture at Washington State University last year, Wells’ research revolves around Black American Women and mental health disparities. In addition to being a Graduate Assistant for WSU’s Multicultural Student Services, Wells also served as Senator of the Graduate and Professional Student Association within the institution.
With a lot on her plate, Wells was still able to carve out enough time out of her day to research pageants that she could potentially participate in.
“I decided to look into pageant organizations that catered to Black women and the Miss Black USA organization seemed to be the perfect fit for me,” said Wells.
With the organization’s mission statement centering around empowering Black women to use their voice and power, this statement fell in line with Wells’ academic research and future career aspirations. All things taken into consideration, Wells was able to make time and decided to enter the pageant. In doing so, she earned the title of Miss Black USA.
When asked how it feels to be Miss Black Washington USA and a Washington State University student, Wells responded, “being Miss Black Washington USA and a WSU student is a great combination of experiences. I am originally from New York and have lived on the East coast my entire life. So, to be able to make an impact specifically on Black Women in Washington has been so exciting.”
Now earning the crown and title, Wells’ platform revolves around her nonprofit work as she is the co-founder of The Prosp(a)ity Project, a 501(c)3 organization that is dedicated to improving the economic mobility of college-educated Black women.
“We do this primarily through our 35*2 Free Initiative which provides retroactive scholarships to women combined with a year-long program of financial literacy training,” said Wells. “I want to stress the importance of financial literacy and educational options to the black community as a whole.”
Self-reflection in most cases is all you need to make that leap forward, Ashley Wells has demonstrated a sense of it is never too late to go after something you’ve always wanted to do and that decision has rewarded her with continued accomplishments like being Miss Black Washington USA.
A Black woman from New York has blossomed, and Wells wants young girls who look like her from all parts of the world to know, “do not let your fears or insecurities stop you from going after what you want. I believe in going after every dream you have because you only live once. I was not going to let my fear of public speaking keep me from applying for the Miss Black USA pageant system.”
“I was rewarded for that ambition with a state title and with a platform that I can use to impact change,” said Wells.
