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HBO: What thoughts stand out to you most when you remember the day you first
attended classes at Central High School?
Minnijean Brown-Trickey: After three weeks of waiting to start school, my memories of the first day were that
the students and teachers were not speaking a language that I could not understand or
discussing concepts that were unknown to me. Remember, I experienced the first day of
school and had seen the unbelievably crude behavior of the mob. I heard all the hatred so
I no longer considered whites as superior to me in any way. I was now the black girl who
had been interviewed by many reporters, met important people such as Thurgood
Marshall and received letters from all over the world (including Jackie Robinson).
In other words, both the internalized and the externalized beliefs and stereotypes
were wrong, mine and theirs. I still worry that beliefs about others and ourselves are so
powerful that they seem solid and factual. Despite the idea that we were encouraged by
our families and black teachers and felt confident about ourselves with each other,
somehow, without our conscious permission, we believed that whites were somehow
smarter. And why not? We had no knowledge of how those beliefs had been structured
into our lives. Whites seemed to possess all the trappings of success. The prevailing
myth that hard work was the key to success seemed hollow because both my parents
worked hard, were task driven and truly hopeful that their work would pay off in the end.
HBO: What was the atmosphere in Little Rock in the days preceding the crisis, and into
the thick of it?
Minnijean Brown-Trickey:
In the Jim Crow south, blacks lived parallel, separate lives from whites and only
heard snippets of the segregationist mass meetings on the news. The themes of the anti-
integration rhetoric were related to Christianity. The argument, then as now, proclaimed
that integration is "an abomination against God, and will mean a breakdown of society."
Billboards reading "Impeach Earl Warren" were everywhere.
I was 15 in the summer of 1957, thinking 15 year-old thoughts and not particularly
concerned about the crazy thoughts white people had. A shift in my attention came after
the names and addresses of the black students "selected" to attend Central were
published in the newspaper. The hate calls and the squealing tires outside our house
were constant.
HBO: Who were the most supportive people you encountered during this time?
My parents were my supporters!
The NAACP had filed the initial suit to usher in integration. They supported us in
Federal District Court after the Little Rock School Board filed an injunction to delay
integration following the first day fiasco. Thus, Thurgood Marshall of the Legal Defense
arm of the NAACP, Jack Greenberg, Wiley Branton, and Chris Mercer supported the legal
challenge. Daisy Bates, the state NAACP president, used her home for TV and other
media interviews and as the pick-up point for transit to school.
Letters poured in from all over the world. Entire classrooms wrote encouraging
letters. Such letters came as the result of the international media who came in droves to
Little Rock.
HBO: In the film, you say, "This is not supposed to be like this. It can't be 50 years...I
can't feel this strong. It just doesn't make sense." Elaborate on those feelings you were
having as you surveyed the school.
Minnijean Brown-Trickey: On any given day, I can walk into Central High with little emotional reaction. Yet,
on another day, especially if I am asked to describe the first day, all of the emotions
floods back- the feelings of fear and rejection. I have spent a lifetime working to resolve
the emotional turmoil. I guess the strong feelings I experienced on that first day were
about how my reaction comes, unbidden, without my permission. It just happens. I
meant that my feelings should not be so haunting after such a long time, but they are.
The other part of my reaction is about knowing too much about how segregation
prevails in this country - and being disappointed and saddened about that.
HBO: What was your family's role in all this? What were your parents' feelings about
what you were going through?
Minnijean Brown-Trickey: I understood long after that my parents had their own struggles. My father lost his
little business. My mother would say to my dad that she couldn't take it another day, and
he would say, "She is a strong girl, she can do it," and the next day he would break
down and she would say, "We'll let her decide." They said each day that I could leave if I
decided I didn't want to go.
My great fear was that they would make me leave Central if I told them what was
really happening. So, just as children do today, when asked how my day went, I
answered "fine" or "OK."
HBO: What is your opinion on the recent Supreme Court decision to restrict race in
school integration?
Minnijean Brown-Trickey: In relation to the struggle for black rights in the U.S., I have to say that we black
people did not know how embedded the opposition to social justice was. I believe what
fascinates the Sojourn participants so much is the discovery of how many deaths came
as the result of the struggle for rights in this country. I wish I didn't know myself. I wish I
hadn't known how inequality had consistently been built into all social relations from 3/5th
persons, Dred Scott, Plessey v. Ferguson. With that background, Brown didn't stand a
chance against white-only suburbs, Jim Crow or the other aspects of society that
persuaded us all that this thinking was "natural" and simply was the "way things are."
And so, we have a supreme court that is as ignorant as everyone else. Think
about it-we can't use race in a race-based society. The tragic part of it all is that
somewhere down the line it will be the responsibility of some few kids to show us the way.
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