Middle Tennessee high school senior makes history as homecoming queen; 'I was trying to hold back tears'

When Jayla Miller first relocated to Williamson County from South Carolina in 2020, she said she was nervous about making new friends.

And because of COVID-19-related school closures at the time, she wasn't able to say goodbye to her old friends.

“I never struggled really with, like, making friends because I'm very social, and I wasn't really worried about it,” she said. “But when I got here, there still was a lot of restrictions, so I didn’t make new friends until later.”

After arriving at Independence High School, Miller's anxiety grew. As the largest high school in Williamson County with a student population of 2,057 and counting, Independence High was considerably larger than her previous high school, she said.

But, her anxiety was unfounded. Miller found friends through her love of sports, and, now a senior, she's committed to the University of North Alabama to play softball. Throughout her time at Independence, she became even more involved at school, joining student council and theatre.

Then, she had an epiphany. Miller said she decided to add another goal to her to-list before graduation.

She wanted to become Independence High School’s first Black homecoming queen.

“I wanted to kind of make the statement because I was aware that there had never been a Black or person of color as homecoming queen. I really want to do this to because I wanted to be the first,” she said.

At Independence, Black students account for only 3.4% of the school's population, officials said.

The school has been open for 20 years in Williamson County, and when it was announced in October that Miller had reached her goal and won homecoming queen, Assistant Principal Steven Pickerill did some fact checking to see if she'd made school history.

“We went through all of the yearbooks to confirm, and yes, she is the first,” Pickerill said.

Miller remembered feeling ecstatic, understanding the magnitude of the moment.

“I was trying to hold back tears because in my mind, I wanted to be the first Tiana," she said. "That's somebody who I looked up to as a Black princess. I wanted other Black girls to be able to look up to me and think she's strong. She's independent, she’s beautiful and a Black woman can be that.”

School administrators, including Pickerill, were incredibly proud.

“Jayla is an such an amazing student,” he said. “If we could have 2,000 students like her, we would be incredibly lucky.”

While her reign as homecoming queen might be coming to an end as graduation nears, Miller hopes she won’t be the school's last Black princess or the last first, for the matter.

“There are endless possibilities that you could be the first in so don't limit yourself," she said, speaking to future generations. "Use that fear and nervousness you feel and turn it into your why. There’s always a chance I would be the last, but at least I was able to hopefully inspire others to try.”

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Middle Tennessee homecoming queen makes history at Independence High