12th Scripps National Spelling Bee

MacNolia Cox, a 13-year-old girl from Akron,[7] and Elizabeth Kenny, a 15-year-old from Plainfield, New Jersey, were the first African-American children to compete as finalists in the National Spelling Bee. Cox placed 5th after misspelling "nemesis" and Kenny, after missing "appellation", placed 7th.[3]

Due to segregation, Cox had to move into a black-only train car when she crossed into Maryland, and was unable to stay at the Willard Hotel with the other spellers. Cox and her mother were also placed at a separate table at the contestants' banquet.[8] Cox's schoolteacher and newspaper sponsor representative, who were both white, engaged in what the Baltimore Afro-American described as a "long and heated argument", contending that "nemesis" was a proper noun (Nemesis being a Greek goddess of retribution). The chairman explained that the word was in frequent use as a common noun, and that the definition he'd given Cox was "fate". He appealed to the judges, who agreed and ruled against Cox.[9] According to "family lore" and subsequent speculation, Cox lost as the result of racism, although such claims were denied at the time and remain unproven.[10][11]

In 2004, poet A. Van Jordan published M-A-C-N-O-L-I-A, a book of poems written as if from the perspective of different people in Cox's life, imagining her as a brilliant but tragic figure crushed by racism.[12][11][13] Inspired by Jordan's book, Carole Boston Weatherford, a writer and critic known for controversial claims that Pokémon character Jynx was racist and "an obese drag queen" version of Little Black Sambo, published a children's picture book about Cox titled How Do You Spell Unfair? in 2023.[14][15][16]