REMEMBER the Miss Black America pageant?

Organizers want to bring it back. Should they?

Or has the pageant, once a much-anticipated annual ritual, outlived its purpose?

There's a part of me that feels nostalgic about what the Miss Black America pageant stood for. Growing up, my mother and I used to watch it religiously the same way we watched the Miss America pageant.

But another part of me feels the pageant's time has come and gone.

In 1968, when Philly-based entrepreneur J. Morris Anderson organized a beauty contest celebrating black women, it filled a huge void. It was sorely needed because in those days, the Miss America pageant had never crowned a nonwhite winner, and the idea that it would was nothing but a distant fantasy.

"I was just, basically, disgusted with the propaganda that had been put out by the power structure with regard to black people - the propaganda that black people were ugly and that we didn't deserve to be a part of mainstream America," recalled Anderson, who then lived in Germantown. "I just got fed up. I had three beautiful daughters who couldn't look into a magazine and see a replica of themselves. I just got fed up and said 'I'm going to produce a Miss Black America pageant.' "

That was a long time and a lot of Miss Americas ago. After Vanessa Williams became the Jackie Robinson of pageantry by becoming the first nonwhite to be named Miss America in 1984, other women of color followed, including the first Asian winner in 2001. The nation's other pageant biggie, the Miss USA pageant, has since named black winners as well.

Organizers for the Miss Black America pageant, which never had the financial backing that the two others did, also faced a messy public-relations battle after boxer Mike Tyson was accused of raping a contestant in 1991. After that, the pageant began fading away.

Imagine my surprise when I got a news release announcing that organizers want to bring it back.

The world has changed so much since the pageant's heyday. Pageantry, itself, has a retro feel. The Miss America pageant, which was organized to extend the summer season in Atlantic City, isn't even held there now. Television ratings are dismal. It's sad to see what has become of not only the Miss America pageant, but pageantry in general. I've always thought of it as a way to build self-esteem among young women and a chance for them to showcase their talents and compete for scholarship money.

But with the rise of reality TV and all the pageant-style competitions broadcast these days, pageants don't get the same attention they once did. We used to look forward each year to the Miss Black America pageant and the Miss America pageant.

Not any more. If former Miss California Carrie Prejean hadn't said what she did about gay marriage during her interview, most Americans wouldn't have even known that the Miss USA pageant had taken place. And most people would be hard-pressed to name this year's winner.

Although organizers say they accept women of all ethnicities, the fact that the name is the Miss Black America pageant is divisive. What if there were a Miss White America pageant? You'd have to understand the history of the Miss Black America pageant to know why it's called that instead of something less specific, like Miss Our New World or something more inclusive.

Of course, Anderson doesn't see it that way. "We need this to continue because many of those feelings still exist. The brainwashing still occurs regarding our features, regarding our hair textures. It has not disappeared," Anderson pointed out yesterday. "With regard to the races and black America and because we have a black president, that does not eradicate the problem of exclusion in terms of black people."

And here was his clincher: Because the Daily News publishes stories about black people, does it mean that the Philadelphia Tribune isn't needed?

I can't really argue with that.

The Miss Black America pageant will be meeting prospective contestants Sunday at 11 a.m. at Temple University's Howard Gittis Student Center, 13th Street and Montgomery Avenue, in room 200A. For more information, log onto missblackamerica.com or call 215-844-8872.

Send e-mail to heyjen@phillynews.com. My blog: http://go.philly.com/heyjen.