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.
No tag for this post.
Related posts
