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Civil rights legend comes to campus for Bonner lecture
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In her own words, on many subjects Original poem for the Little Rock Nine Topeka news video for the speech |
Minnijean Brown Trickey, a precocious 16-year-old, danced into her house and told her mother, “‘Oh, I’m going to Central this year.’” Then it took her two days to pick out the dress she would wear on her first day of school.
Fairly typical high school reaction, but this was no typical high school. On Sept. 25, 1957, the teenager was one of nine African-American students to begin classes at the segregated, all-white Central High School in Little Rock, Ark. Flanked by federal troops for protection from hostile mobs, the students entered the school against the Arkansas governor’s will, and the horrible spectacle of racist ideology was broadcast on televisions around the world. The public clash of state and federal powers was played out in the Central High School hallways, where each member of “Little Rock Nine” was escorted
and guarded by a soldier.
Fifty years later, Brown Trickey appeared at Emporia State University to present the Bonner and Bonner Diversity Series Lecture on Sept. 12, days before heading back to her home in Little Rock to prepare for the nationally commemorated 50th anniversary.
“A steel rod came up through my back when I saw how stupid people were willing to be,” she said during a press conference at ESU. “I don’t think that we ever ceased to be horrified by what was happening, [but] it’s a beautiful story. We have all these ways we can be as people. We can be brave and courageous, we can be silent witnesses, we can be teenage terrorists incited by grown-ups.”
Brown Trickey still has the indomitable spirit and engaging smile that carried her through those turbulent times. As a teacher’s aide in Canada, she turned around a group of behaviorally challenged students by paying attention to them as people, but fellow teachers in their prejudice could not accept the students’ success. One might assume that experiences of Little Rock would leave someone cynical, but not Brown Trickey; her reaction to the teachers is telling. “It was hurtful to me,” she said. “I didn’t want to know that about the world.”
Her activist attitude led her into a variety of pursuits, from protesting the Vietnam War and moving to Canada, to becoming an advocate for the environment and accessibility issues. She was, in a way, defining herself as a person outside of the Little Rock Nine. In the last five years or so, she has fully embraced the role of speaking publicly about her experiences in Little Rock, and finds that there is much to do. She finds “a kind of satisfaction” in educating people about what happened there, and in spreading the message of non-violence.
“It’s the American amnesia about reality in our society,” Brown Trickey said of the Little Rock Nine. “It was pretty much not talked about until the 40th anniversary. There’s this great desire (in me) to help, to explain. There is an explanation for how we are. People say we are naturally violent, naturally racist. No, we aren’t.”
In the run-up to the 50th anniversary, Brown Trickey was glad to get away from Little Rock and visit Emporia. She was fielding about six media interview requests per day in September, and took another call as she rode from the Kansas City airport to Emporia. The hype was building, with the likes of Bill Clinton coming to Little Rock. Brown Trickey was ready to talk, and it is a treat to hear her own words.
“I’ve had 50 years to think. I’ve had 50 years to analyze, and those black people in black-and-white footage are frozen in time. I can’t tell you how much I admire them.”
“We’re not going to clean it up. We’re not going to sanitize it. It takes 50 years to reflect. I think I understand the power that it has, but it’s taken me a long time to know it.”
“After we got turned away the first day, we got letters from all over the world. Kids all over the world felt the kinship. We need other people to give us a reality check.”
- On seeing the magnitude of the Little Rock situation through the eyes of others, Brown Trickey said Americans don’t have a sense of themselves.
On the flow of information:
“Is ignorance bliss? How are we deciding to bomb? Who, what, where, when? These huge, earth-shaking decisions with no information – we believe our own propaganda, for God’s sakes. We believe our propaganda about other people.”
- On partisanship spoiling a real conversation about the issues, to the point even racism can’t be talked about.
“Get rid of my television. There’s nothing on it. Those are the scripts that are designed to disempower, to get in your head and tell you who you are.”
- On how she would combat the negative stereotypes of African-Americans on MTV.
“If we wanted to, we could convince people of anything. Everyone is dangerous, everyone is a criminal, lock your doors, buy a gun.”
- On television’s impact on her 91-year-old mother, who hears a 50-degree forecast called “cold” and demands more blankets, or is frightened by a forecast for “severe” weather rather than rain.
“Now they just don’t tell you what people are doing. People are fighting different kind of ‘isms,’ but [there is a] dispersal of it. And in this 24-hour media, where nothing is said, ever, we confuse people. I’m confused a lot.”
On the state of education:
“You can now blame us for everything!”
- On the city of Little Rock being “up in arms” over a new African-American majority on the city’s school board, Brown Trickey wonders why everyone is so upset.
“Everything is rolling back, for what reason I can’t imagine. When I say you can’t talk about [racism], you can’t have a black majority on the school board. When they’re released from supervision, the schools in the black neighborhoods will crumble right into the ground. That’s across the country.”
- On courts rolling back the provisions of Brown vs. Board of Education, giving districts unilateral status to act without court supervision
“Throw money at the children! Throw money at the education of the children!”
- On people who say money shouldn’t be thrown at the problems in education.
“In a modern institution of learning, ask your professors to interrogate the hole of racist ideology, terror and practice.”
On the American character:
“The least among us tells us who the rest of us are.”
- On those who fall through the cracks of education and poverty in America.
“It’s not that the activism has stopped. It’s that activism is ignored. So people get discouraged. They say activism doesn’t help. It does help. I feel despondent because no one listens to me.”
“It’s too powerful to have people not afraid, whatever their color is. The stuff that was done, whatever it was, was about transforming peoples’ heads, stopping the fear.”
- On throwing off a national feeling of fear in the 1950s.
On social change:
“The real lesson in social change is ‘Don’t do it alone.’ You have to work with other people. You have to go to people in charge.”
“Diversity? That’s the nice word. It doesn’t have any teeth in it. It’s a way of diminishing the importance of all ‘isms.’ They should feel the same level of desperation as people did in the ’60s.”
“How many of you made history when you were 14- and 15-year-olds? How many? Well, why not? Why didn’t you? History is made by us, made by ordinary people. Next year, I challenge you, make history.”
Photos from the event
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| Brown Trickey delivers the Bonner address. |
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| Meeting with students during her visit to ESU. |
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| The speaker visits with ESU faculty and staff. |
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| Minnijean Brown Trickey meets with ESU student body president Courtney George. |
Last Updated April 17, 2008