Jennifer Hosten was 23 years old when she made history, as the first Black woman to be crowned Miss World. Footage of that evening, on 20 November 1970, was broadcast live from the Royal Albert Hall in London to about 100 million viewers worldwide, and shows Hosten, representing Grenada, looking radiantly beautiful and endearingly stunned, as host Bob Hope places the winner’s crown on her head.
Her moment in the spotlight had already been overshadowed, however. Approximately 40 minutes earlier, the proceedings were interrupted when a group of women’s liberation activists began sounding football rattles and throwing flour-bombs in protest at what they saw as an egregious display of sexism.
