Miss USA Deshauna Barber won the night with her natural hair

The Miss USA 2017 pageant was held on Mother's Day, but one special mom couldn't be in attendance for Sunday's crowning.

Miss USA 2016 Deshauna Barber was on hand to pass the crown to this year's winner: Kára McCullough, also from the District of Columbia.

But in a taped segment that aired before the winner was named, Barber revealed that her mother, Cordelia Barber, died of lung cancer shortly after she won the Miss USA crown. To honor her mom's memory, Barber announced she'd be wearing an afro onstage as a touching tribute to her mom's own hair.

In an Instagram post last year, Barber revealed that during her emotional reaction onstage after she won Miss USA 2016, she was actually thinking about her mom, who was fighting cancer at the time of the competition.

"Now that my mother has passed on I can be honest about my crowning moment. I have lied to a lot of people.... Telling interviewers that I was so dramatically emotional because I worked so hard to be on that stage," she wrote. "The truth is, I was emotional because my mom was in her home fighting for her life and there was nothing I could do to help her. I told myself that the least thing I could do for my mother was to make her proud by bringing the Miss USA crown home to our family."

Twitter reacted to Barber wearing her natural hair onstage with applause (and some tears), with one user writing, "Deshauna Barber is the Barbie Doll I want my daughters to have."