There's a New Miss Steel City in Town

Release from Miss Steel City

On April 2nd, 2022 the city of Pittsburgh welcomed their new Miss Steel City PA 2022, also known as Shakira Unique Jackson. Jackson recalls going with her mom to vote in West Philadelphia and noticing an age difference.

"You would see more seniors," she said. She infrequently saw younger adults staffing the polling locations" that is when she knew her social change journey was just beginning. 

Jackson is a senior studying history-political science and pre-law at the University of Pittsburgh, and her social impact initiative is "inspiring the next generation of voters." Jackson has worked very hard these past few years to increase voter turnout on her campus and in the Pittsburgh and Bradford area. Jackson's first-time as a poll worker was in 2020 as part of a national measure by the Campus Vote Project, a nonpartisan group that works to reduce barriers to student voting on college campuses. 

In doing so, Jackson, who is a Black and Italian American, joined a diverse group of thousands of younger Americans who stepped in as poll workers across the country during early voting and on Election Day.

According to the FiveThirtyEight politics survey with Ipsos of more than 8,000 Americans, people between 18 and 34 are less likely to have faith in our political system, but Jackson plans to change this with her social impact initiative.

Jackson currently serves as the President of the University of Pittsburgh at Bradford's Student Voting Coalition and has hopes to not only increase voter turnout but create diligent young leaders who understand the purpose behind fair redistricting maps and the power voting yields. "One of the prominent issues with voter education is the lack of knowledge," Jackson said. 

With the help of the Miss Pennsylvania organization, Jackson intends to reach a different audience and help citizens become aware of additional resources that could help increase the number of people educated about voter education. Jackson also hopes to increase the number of volunteers both within the Miss Pennsylvania organization and at the voting polls while also inspiring the next generation of voters to become civically engaged through the arts. 

Miss Steel City emphasized that expression and education is the answer to solving social issues and wants others to care about this issue because voting impacts everybody regardless of one's social status. 

One of the steps Jackson plans to take when she becomes Miss Pennsylvania is to create her own voting curriculum for educational institutions to utilize. Miss Steel City Shakira Jackson believes that communities of interest deserve to be represented fairly. Miss Steel City wants all higher education institutions to be considered a community of interest, given its importance to helping young voters create a pattern of lifetime voting and do their duty as American citizens. 

The city of Pittsburgh is proud to have such a strong, diligent and inspiring youth advocate, and we can not wait to see all of the work and service she pursues.