From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Minnijean Brown-Trickey (born September 11,
1941)[1] was one
of a group of African-American teenagers known as the "Little Rock
Nine." On September 25, 1957, under the gaze of 1,200 armed
soldiers and a worldwide audience, Minnijean Brown-Trickey faced
down an angry mob and helped to desegregate Central
High. She was later suspended from Little Rock Central High
School in 1957 due to an incident in which her bowl of chilli was [2] spilled
on a white student in the cafeteria; she was expelled in February
1958 [3] after
verbally abusing a white female student.
In her adult life, Brown-Trickey would continue to be an
activist for minority rights. She lived in Canada for a number of years in the 1980s and
1990s, getting involved in First Nations activism and studying
social work at Laurentian University in Sudbury, Ontario. She has received the
Congressional Gold Medal, the
Wolf Award, the Spingarn Medal, and many other citations
and awards.[4] Under
the Clinton
administration, she served for a time as Deputy Assistant
Secretary of the Department of the Interior responsible for
diversity.[5]
A documentary film about Brown-Trickey entitled Journey to
Little Rock: The Untold Story of Minnijean Brown Trickey
(2002) was produced by North-East Pictures in Ottawa, where Brown-Trickey lived
during the 1990s. In 2007, Laurentian also honored Trickey with an
honorary doctorate of laws. [6]
Brown-Trickey has moved back to Little Rock, and resides there
with her mother and sister. Her daughter Spirit Trickey also
resides in Little Rock, and is employed at Little Rock Central High
School National Historic Site, where she interprets her mother's,
and the other eight students' struggle to enter Central.[7]
Television
portrayals
Brown-Trickey has been depicted in two made-for-television movies about the Little
Rock Nine. She was portrayed by Regina Taylor in the 1981 CBS movie Crisis at Central High,[8] and by
Monica Calhoun
in the 1993 Disney
Channel movie The Ernest Green Story.[9]
Minnijean is a proud member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Inc.
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