Photo: supplied
In September 1957 Minnijean Brown-Trickey was one of nine African American students who entered Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas.
Until that moment the school had been for white students only. She and her fellow students walked into the school - protected by paratroopers, on the orders of President Eisenhower, as an earlier attempt to enter had been blocked by a mob of white residents.
The US Supreme Court had banned segregation three years earlier, but die-hard segregationists in the southern states dug in as long as they could. 16 year old Minnijean Brown-Trickey and her group became known as the Little Rock Nine, and that day marked the beginning of the end of racial segregation in US schools.
She went on to become a social worker, activist, and social justice advocate, a presidential appointee in the Clinton Administration, and been the subject of two movies.
She is in New Zealand on a speaking tour, including with secondary schools here and speaks with Kathryn Ryan.
