Miss Black America (MBA) were a punk-influenced rock band based in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, England. Its original line-up consisted of Seymour Glass (voice/guitar), Mike Smith (bass) and Neil Baldwin (drums). The band formed after a chance encounter between Glass and Smith at a drum and bass night at The Junction in nearby Cambridge in October 1999. Baldwin and Smith had been playing together for several years, having attended neighbouring schools in Bury St Edmunds. Glass was at this time playing with two other Suffolk-based bands: Billion Dollar Brain, with future MBA bassist Laura Kidd and The Hip Down, with singer/songwriter Greg McDonald (later of The Dawn Parade/The Visions; Glass and McDonald also ran a fanzine entitled Planet Of Sound after a song by Pixies of the same name. "Seymour Glass" was the pseudonym Seymour initially adopted in order to review bands anonymously for the fanzine, after a character from the stories of J.D. Salinger but the name stuck for the duration of his time in MBA. Following Glass's departure from The Hip Down, McDonald changed the name of the band to The Dawn Parade.