Pete Buttigieg is not popular with black voters in South Carolina. Miss Black America is trying to change that.

Ryann Richardson doesn't know the person she's hugging right now. Or that one. Or that one, either.

“That’s par for the course in my job,” she says, gliding through the crowd at this gala for historically black colleges and universities looking like a modern-day Statue of Liberty in a towering rhinestone-and-pearl tiara and spark­ly silver gown.

The sash she won in August 2018, making her the reigning Miss Black America, is back at the hotel because that outfit alone is like a giant name tag.

And besides, on this Saturday...