Last night the three of us went to hear Minnijean Brown Trickey speak as part of Black History Month at UMM. She was one of the Little Rock Nine, nine black teenagers who had the courage (and naivete) to actually believe the desegregation orders handed down by the courts. They had the temerity to show up for classes at Central High in Little Rock, Arkansas, despite Governor Orval Faubus’s decision to use the Arkansas National Guard to prevent them from entering the building.
It was very cool hearing from someone who had been part of those amazing events. She wasn’t a super structured speaker, instead letting stories happen as the mood struck. She has had so much remarkable experience, though, that the stories were great and it wasn’t that hard to connect the threads.
Despite several audience questions that pointed in this direction, I left not really having a solid sense of why they actually did it. It was an enormous challenge, risk, and sacrifice, and I’m afraid I didn’t find the “Well, it had to be done” answers very compelling. Obviously it did need doing, but only nine of them actually did it (and only four returned after Faubus re-opened the high schools). Choices were clearly made, and I’d love to better understand what lay behind those. That, of course, assumes that they themselves understand their motivations, and she gave the impression that in many ways it was still a bit of a mystery to her.
Some semi-random resources include the New York Times Learning Network site on the events in Little Rock and some recollections of Elizabeth Eckford (one of the nine).
Attendance at her talk was decent but not great (100-200?), which was a bit disappointing.
Currently listening to “Mean old world” by the Heavenly Gospel Singers from Anthology Of American Folk Music Volume 4 (Edited By Harry Smith). How appropriate.
3 Comments
I appreciated your honest feedback of Ms. Minnijean Brown. I work for Adult Protective Services in Austin, Texas. Every year we have a conference where we invite different speakers to participate. I was reading various sites where Ms. Brown was the main speaker. We are still considering asking Ms. Brown to be a speaker, but after reading your column I wonder if she is going to be as dynamic as I was hgoping whe would be. This conference will be attended by 500 people. Would you care to share your opinion?
Sincerely,
Alex Cruz
APS Program Specialist
Austin, Texas
I definitely enjoyed her presentation. I think she was dynamic but not so charismatic, i.e., she was very interesting but not riviting in the tent preacher/political orator sort of way. Bernice Johnson Reagon, who was also on campus a few months later, was much more charismatic, but she’s a professional singer/performer, so that’s not terribly surprising. My biggest concern would probably be the fairly unstructured nature of her presentation (at least as we saw it). If you think your audience will be OK with a fairly stream of consciousness presentation, then it should be fine. If they’re going to want a more “3 clear points and a strong conclusion” kind of speaker, then she may not be the best choice (again based on our single data point, which may not generalize).
When she spoke here it was in a hall that holds about 500 max, although actual attendance was quite a bit less. She handled the hall space quite nicely, though, so I don’t think it would have been any worse (or any better) if it had been full.
I’ve never heard any negative reviews on Minnijean Brown Trickey. She was the keynote speaker at my school 4 years ago and we’ve invited her back every year since. She is an amazing speaker and knows how to talk and relate to young people. Her honesty is sometimes intimidating and it sometimes shocks people. But, all in all she (in my opinion) is one of the best speakers I’ve ever had for our speakers series and I would recommend her time and time again. I don’t think that I (or anyone else who did not live through) the brutality of segregation can judge how one justifies thier actions or explantions, especially since they were mere children when this happened. I noticed also that Minnijean Brown Trickey seemed actually shocked at her own reaction and experience as a teenager at Central High during the desegregation. All this being said… to the person above “Alexander” I would 100% recommend her as a speaker. I have nothing but praise and admiration for her and her ability to inform and energize the youth I work with.