Minnijean Brown-Trickey Biography
Minnijean Brown-Trickey is an American political figure who belonged to the Little Rock Nine, a group of nine African American teenagers who made up Little Rock Central High School.
Minnijean Brown-Trickey Age
Minnijean was born on September 11, 1941, in Little Rock Arkansas. Brown was born under the birth sign Virgo. She is 78years as of 2019. The heroine celebrates her birthday on September 11th every year.
Minnijean Brown-Trickey Education
Minnijean attended the New Lincoln School in Manhattan for 11th and 12th grade. Brown-Trickey started her high school career in 1956 at Horace Mann, an all-black school in Little Rock, AR. She later moved to Little Rock Central High School in 1957 following the judgment of Brown v. Board of Education.
Minnijean was expelled from Central and graduated from New York high school at Manhattan’s New Lincoln School. Minnijean Brown-Trickey attended Southern Illinois University where she majored in journalism.
She lived in Canada for a number of years in the 1980s and 1990s, where she studied social work at Laurentian University in Sudbury, Ontario, and later completing a Master of Social Work degree at Carleton University in Ottawa, Ontario.
Minnijean Brown-Trickey After School
Minnijean Brown-Trickey attended the University of Southern Illinois where she studied journalism. She resided in Canada in the 1980s and 1990s for a number of years, where she studied social work at Laurentian University in Sudbury, Ontario, and later graduated from Carleton University in Ottawa, Ontario with a Master of Social Work.
Brown-Trickey eventually shifted back to America and worked as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Workforce Diversity at the Interior Department for the Clinton Administration in 1999 through 2001.
Brown-Trickey eventually moved back to America and worked as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Workforce Diversity at the Department of the Interior for the Clinton Administration in 1999 through 2001.
Today, Minnijean continues to speak out for minority rights as well as for the environment. She has spoken in 49 states as well as several countries including Canada, England, and South Africa. The speaking event that Brown-Trickey values the most was speaking at an award ceremony for Malala Yousafzai.
Minnijean Brown-Trickey Little Rock Nine
In September 1957, Minnijean Brown-Trickey set out to incorporate Little Rock Central High School along with eight other African American learners with the assistance of Daisy Bates, a prominent civil rights activist in Central Arkansas.
Originally, on September 5, 1957, the students tried to enter the school but were stopped by Governor Orval Faubus’ call from the Arkansas National Guard. In response, President Dwight D. Eisenhower sent 1,200 U.S. paratroopers from the 101st Airborne Division to help the Little Rock Nine enter the school. Brown-Trickey joined the other nine students on September 25, 1957.
Despite the soldiers stationed at the high school throughout the college year of’ 57-’58, their classmates harassed the nine learners physically and verbally. Brown-Trickey was the first to be suspended from the Little Rock Nine and the only one to be expelled. Her suspension was the consequence of a 17 December 1957 incident.
Brown-Trickey was intimidated while wandering through the crowded cafeteria during dinner, ending up dropping her lunch tray and spilling chili on two male learners. She has been suspended for six days from college. Minnijean returned to college after her suspension and a white student poured soup on her.
He was suspended for only two days. A group of women threw a bag at Minnijean in February filled with combination locks. She answered and was immediately expelled by calling the girls “white trash.” Following her expulsion, Central pupils carried a note saying, “One down, eight to go.”
Minnijean Brown Trickey Civil Rights Movement
Trickey is a social activist and has worked on behalf of peacemaking, environmental issues, developing youth leadership, diversity education and training, cross-cultural communication, and gender and social justice advocacy.
She served in the Clinton administration as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Workforce Diversity at the Department of the Interior from 1999 to 2001. She has taught social work at Carleton University in Ottawa Canada and in various community colleges in Canada.
Trickey worked for an interactive traveling trip called Sojourn to the Past, a ten-day interactive history experience through selected U.S. states with 100 high school students learning about the civil rights movement.
She was also a guest lecturer at Arkansas State University (ASU) in Jonesboro (Craighead County). She was the recipient of the Mary Gay Shipley Writing Fellowship, as a part of ASU’s Heritage Studies Ph.D. program. She is also the subject of a documentary, Journey to Little Rock: The Untold Story of Minnijean Brown Trickey.
Minnijean Brown-Trickey Awards
Brown-Trickey has been the recipient of many awards including a Lifetime Achievement Tribute by the Canadian Race Relations Foundation, the International Wolf Award, the Spingarn Medal, and an award from the W.E.B. DuBois Institute.
Under the Clinton administration, Brown-Trickey received the Congressional Gold Medal in 1999 alongside the other members of the Little Rock Nine.
Minnijean Brown-Trickey Family
Minnijean’s parents are Willie and Imogene Brown Her father worked as an autonomous mason and landscaping contractor while Imogene was a homemaker and nurse assistant. She is the eldest of four siblings.
Minnijean Brown-Trickey Children
In 1967, Minnijean Brown married Roy Trickey. The couple had six children before divorcing in the 1980s. One of her daughters, Spirit Trickey, worked for the Little Rock Central High School National Historic Site in Little Rock, AR for 10 years.
Growing up, Spirit and her siblings knew very little about their mother’s involvement with civil rights. Minnijean didn’t enjoy speaking about her time at Central, and it took 30 years for her to discuss the issue with her children.
While Spirit no longer works for the Historic Site, she is still involved with the Little Rock Nine and their history. This includes coordinating her mother’s speaking events and helping her write a memoir.
What Is Minnijean Brown Doing Today
Activist Brown-Trickey is still alive. She 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, and by Monica Calhoun in the 1993 Disney Channel movie The Ernest Green Story.
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.
Minnijean Brown-Trickey Quotes
“The general feeling was if she [Rosa Parks] could do it, we could do it. . . She was really a heroine to us. She was an ordinary woman and we were ordinary kids and it seems we had a relationship.” (“Little Rock Nine member calls Parks an inspiration”,