Civil-rights figure to speak at events in Youngtown

STAFF REPORT

YOUNGSTOWN — Minnijean Brown-Trickey, one of the Little Rock Nine who integrated Central High School in Little Rock, Ark., in 1957, will be in Youngstown on Oct. 28 to speak about her experience and the principles of nonviolence.

She will address a breakfast in her honor at 8 a.m. in Trinity Methodist Church, 30 W. Front St., and speak at a free and public event at 7 p.m. in Ford Family Recital Hall, DeYor Performing Arts Center, 260 Federal Plaza West.

Reservations are required for the breakfast and should be made by calling Penny Wells at (330) 288-0545 by Tuesday.

Brown-Trickey is an ongoing participant in the “Sojourn to the Past” program that takes high school students from around the country on a journey through Southern locales where the civil-rights movement got its start in the 1950s.

Two small groups of Youngstown City Schools students have made that journey under the direction of Wells, a retired teacher, and another group will go next spring. Brown-Trickey traveled with the students on portions of those trips.

She will have dinner with Youngstown’s Sojourn students Oct. 27 and speak to ninth-graders in the city schools during her visit.

Her visit is sponsored by Black Educators, Youngstown Early College, the League of Women Voters of Greater Youngstown, Youngstown City Schools, Partners for Workplace Diversity Williamson School of Business Administration at Youngstown State University and the YSU Office of Equal Opportunity and Diversity.