In class we watched the documentary Journey to Little Rock: The Untold Story of Minnijean Brown Trickey. This documentary took us through the life of Minnijean Brown Trickey, who was a member of the Little Rock Nine. Students watched the documentary (which started out with her time in Little Rock and took us all the way up to where she is in her life now) and wrote a movie review. Here is an example of one of the movie reviews that I received!
K. Lambeth
Forrest Bendel
Journey to Little Rock: The Untold Story of Minnijean Brown-Trickey
Journey to Little Rock is a film on the life and struggles on Minnijean Brown- Trickey who was one of the original Little Rock Nine who tried to integrate Central High School in 1957. This movie started out talking about that year in Arkansas and the things that all of the students faced as they tried to go to school. The most interesting thing that happened to Minnijean was when she finally got tired of the bullying and struck back. Even though the incident wasn’t even her fault, Minnijean was first suspended and then expelled from Central High School. The movie keeps going past that year which was pretty interesting because most people think of the Little Rock Nine only for what happened in 1957. If you watch the whole movie, you learn that Minnijean battled the government for what she believed her entire life. She actually moved out of the United States with her husband during the Vietnam War era. She is now a writer and social worker in Ontario, Canada.
I think this movie was really interesting because it let us all see what happened after Minnijean got kicked out of Central High. I guess most people don’t really think about the Little Rock Nine beside for integrating the school since almost all of them (not Minnijean though) finished that year. But since Minnijean spent the rest of her life trying to fight injustices against many different groups of people and herself, doesn’t that mean that they failed? The movie was good but definitely left me with more questions on whether or not integrating Central High was really a success (or even if it is successful today). I guess thinking about the Little Rock Nine and all that stuff didn't really set in until I saw this documentary and the person who actually went through it (Clotfelter).