Civil-rights icon and longtime social activist visits Mahoning Valley

By SEAN BARRON

news@vindy.com

YOUNGSTOWN

It wasn’t so much that Minnijean Brown-Trickey experienced tremendous adversity in her teen years that impressed Sarina Chatman, as it was one of the ways she handled it.

“Her boldness influenced me,” said Chatman, a Youngstown State University senior majoring in interpersonal communications and minoring in Africana studies. “She’s impacted my life by not allowing other people to shut down my voice.”

Chatman was among about 40 people who came to Monday evening’s three-hour Mingle with Minni gathering at Flambeau’s restaurant, 2308 Market St., on the South Side, to meet and spend time with the civil-rights icon and longtime social activist, who came to the Mahoning Valley to participate in Nonviolence Week activities and help conduct leadership-skills workshops at a few area high schools.

Brown-Trickey was among the nine black students collectively known as the Little Rock Nine who in September 1957 integrated the all-white Central High School in Little Rock, Ark.

Her efforts came at a high price, however, because she and the other eight blacks faced daily bullying and torment from a core group of racist students as the majority of the student body did nothing to help them. In the middle of the 1957-58 school year, Brown-Trickey was expelled from Central High for speaking out and had to finish her education at a school in New York City.

Nevertheless, Brown-Trickey has courageously used her inhumane treatment as a tool for fighting for social justice and encouraging others “to be willing to speak and stand up when they see a wrong,” Chatman continued.

“Minnijean is very courageous to still be active today. She’s motivated me to be courageous as well,” said Micah Smith, a YSU senior majoring in media communications. “She empowers me to be bold and keep pushing, even when people do me wrong.”

Chatman and Smith also went on the annual Sojourn to the Past traveling American history journey in 2012 and 2013, respectively, where they met Brown-Trickey, who accompanies participants on the entire immersive bus trip through the Deep South. The Sojourn experience allows high-school students and adults to visit key civil-rights locations and meet people who fought on the front lines for equality, then apply to their lives lessons they learned about the value of inclusion, acceptance, compassion and tolerance.

Smith said she also admires the civil-rights, environmental and social activist because Brown-Trickey didn’t allow the adversity she faced to stop her from getting a solid education. In addition, she doesn’t allow age to negatively impact her, Smith continued.

“The job is never done because of age,” she added.

Brown-Trickey also has deeply-rooted wisdom about and an understanding of young people, many of whom realize how much she cares about them and tend to gravitate toward her, observed Penny Wells, the Mahoning Valley Sojourn to the Past organization’s executive director.

Also, Brown-Trickey is well-read and has a highly sophisticated view of people and the world, and it would “behoove all of us to listen to it,” Wells said.

In addition, Brown-Trickey applies the lessons she’s gleaned from her early traumatic experiences to the present, and helps many youngsters work through their challenges, Wells continued.

“She has the ability to show kids that they have the power to have their voices heard. They have within them the power to act,” she said.

For her part, Brown-Trickey praised the Youngstown City Schools students who created Nonviolence Week in Ohio and for spreading the message to others, something she said is bringing positive changes to their lives and to the city.

“You have heroes in your midst,” she added.

Brown-Trickey also will be the recipient of the 2018 Simeon Booker Award for Courage during a free program that starts at 7 tonight in the DeYor Performing Arts Center, 260 W. Federal St., downtown.