In a visit to Tampa, Ericka Dunlap urges young women not to let "outside forces" prevent them from succeeding.
By BILL VARIAN
Published April 17, 2004
TAMPA - Before Friday's luncheon, 13-year-old Frieda Morgan penned a letter to the event's speaker, Miss America 2004, Ericka Dunlap.
"I told her she was very beautiful," she said. "And I'm happy she won Miss America."
And that she, too, wants to be Miss America one day.
Dunlap acknowledged the note during her speech at the Tampa Convention Center, which carried the message that each member of the audience, particularly the young women, can be whatever they want to be. And, yes, that includes becoming Miss America.
"Dreams are definitely accomplishable," Dunlap said. "You can attain any amount of greatness you want to achieve. Don't let outside forces come between you and your dreams."
Dunlap, 22, of Orlando, is on a yearlong speaking tour promoting her Miss America Platform, "United We Stand, Divided We Fall Behind: Celebrating Diversity and Inclusion." But her speech, arranged by Sisters Empowering Women Inc., had more to do with turning stumbling blocks into stepping stones.
SEW, as the group is called, was founded by three sisters who initially started a nonprofit group that provided free prom dresses to young women who couldn't afford them. It has evolved into providing training, encouragement and mentoring to struggling young women, and it still provides prom dresses.
In many ways, the mission is, as sister Karin-Davis Thompson said Friday, to help make young women pretty inside and outside. So the speaker was fitting.
Dunlap was crowned the first African-American Miss Florida in 2003 after three tries at winning the honor. A communications major at the University of South Florida with plans to pursue a law degree, she won the Miss America pageant in Atlantic City, N.J., and is six months into her reign.
She said she has wanted to be Miss America since she was 6 years old. After two unsuccessful tries for Miss Florida, she said she was ready to give up, until a friend talked her out of it.
"He said, "If you don't go back, you're going to be doing a lot of little girls an injustice,"' she said.
Segueing back to her audience of young ladies and the women who mentor them, she said, "Just having that one person believe in me was the thing I needed to realize I had to take all precautions to win."
