The
National Museum of American History in Washington, DC, has an
exhibition called “American Stories.” A recent donation to the museum
came from Minnijean Brown Trickey, who presented the Smithsonian with
her high school graduation dress, a graduation program from the New
Lincoln School in New York, and a suspension slip from her previous high
school. And that’s where Trickey’s story begins, of how she became a
part of history in 1957 as one of the Little Rock Nine.
Although
about 80 African-American students had been approved by the Little Rock
School Board to transfer to Central the following year, the number
dwindled to 10 after the students were told they couldn't participate in
extracurricular activities, their parents were in danger of losing
their jobs, and there was a looming threat of violence. The parents of a
tenth student, Jane Hill, decided not to allow their daughter to return
after the mob scene on the first day.
According to Trickey, her
real motivation for attending Central was that it was nine blocks from
her house and she and her two best friends, Melba Pattillo and Thelma
Mothershed would be able to walk there.
“The nine of us were not
especially political,” she says. “We thought, we can walk to Central,
it’s a huge, beautiful school, this is gonna be great,” she remembers.
“I
really thought that if we went to school together, the white kids are
going to be like me, curious and thoughtful, and we can just cut all
this segregation stuff out,” she recalls. Unfortunately, she was wrong.
It took the 101st Airborne to get the students into the high school, but staying there was just as difficult.
Read Trickey’s story at Smithsonian.
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