Miss Universe just crowned its first black winner in eight years, and of the few good things to come from the beauty pageant, this may be the best.

“I grew up in a world where a woman who looks like me, with my kind of skin and my kind of hair, was never considered to be beautiful,” Miss South Africa said before she was crowned winner of the Miss Universe pageant on Sunday. “I want children to look at me and see my face, and I want them to see their faces reflected in mine.”