"At 84, Minnijean Brown-Trickey says she has "done it all." Long before her work as an anti-racist educator and environmental campaigner in Canada, she demonstrated enormous courage as one of the Little Rock Nine a group of Black teenagers who integrated Little Rock Central High School in Little Rock, Ark., in 1957. Minnijean Brown was 15 years old when she decided that she wanted to attend the all-white school, which was closer to her home, instead of Horace Mann High School"
""My two best friends and I said, 'Oh my goodness, if we go to Central, we can walk, we don't have to take a bus,'" she said, adding that "Central High School was in the centre of town." "Those of us who became known as the Nine, we all sort of casually mentioned it to our parents, and our parents casually said, 'Oh, OK,'" Brown-Trickey said. "I think my mom said, 'We'll see.'""
"According to Brown-Trickey, Black parents had shielded their children from some of the effects of the Jim Crow laws that enforced racial segregation in the United States. These laws legalized separation in transportation, schools and public facilities. "Our parents, at least my parents, tried to make sure I didn't encounter it for instance, [by] making my clothes," she said. "Lots of parents, mothers, made their children's clothes so they wouldn't be embarrassed.""
Minnijean Brown-Trickey, now 84, integrated Little Rock Central High School at age 15 as one of the Little Rock Nine and later worked as an anti-racist educator and environmental campaigner in Canada. She chose Central largely for convenience because it was closer to home and within walking distance. Parents generally reacted casually or cautiously when students mentioned attending the all-white school. Black parents often tried to shield their children from Jim Crow segregation, for example by making clothes to avoid embarrassment and reduce encounters with discriminatory treatment.
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