Trickey was one of a group of African-American teenagers known as the "Little Rock Nine." On September 25th 1957, under the gaze of 1,200 armed soldiers and a worldwide audience, Minnijean Brown Trickey faced down an angry mob and helped to desegregate Central High. This seminal event in American history was just the beginning of Minnijean's long career as a crusader for civil rights. She has spent her life fighting for the rights of minority groups and the dispossessed. For her work, she has received the U.S. Congressional Medal, the Wolf Award, the Spingarn Medal, and many other citations and awards. Minnijean Brown Trickey's life has been a powerful example of what one person can do to make the world a better place. Under the Clinton administration, she served for a time as Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Department of the Interior responsible for diversity. Currently, she lives in Maryland, and is continuing her work for civil rights and social equality. She is also working on her autobiography, tentatively entitled, Mixed Blessing: Living Black in North America.

Little Rock, Arkansas, September 1957. Minnijean Brown Trickey and eight other young African-American students cross the threshold of Little Rock Central High, and into history. In one of the defining moments of the civil rights movement, and in defiance of the state, the governor, and armed troops, they took their rightful place in what had been until that moment a whites-only institution. Drawing on her experiences as one of the most articulate and forceful members of the Little Rock Nine, Minnijean Brown Trickey provides audiences with a fascinating exploration of social change, diversity, and the battle against discrimination and racism. Realistic, but at the same time hopeful, she helps her listeners to understand both how far we have come from that fateful autumn in Little Rock, and how far we have still to go, in the battle for freedom and equality in America.