She also said movement does not occur because of a joined effort but because of “people doing things in their own way because they are sick and tired of being sick and tired.”
In response to students who believe they need a guide to evoke change Trickey said, “You are your own leader.”
She believes activism cannot stop, and there are things everywhere to respond to.
“What older people look for in young people is movement,” she said.
Trickey began to explain how instructors in today’s educational institutions have not emulated the revolutionary thought that embodied the civil rights movement.
Trickey said, “Many forces have taken the ability to analyze out of people, and by shading history they have made degenerates who took all the land from indigenous people, the real heroes.”
Though society has changed in the 55 years since Trickey began her fight, she believes that today’s society is brainwashing individuals into thinking everything is fine.
“Segregation is still bad now, but we do not talk about it,” she said.
This passive attitude gives birth to individuals she calls the, “silent witnesses of the world who stand by and say nothing.”
According to Trickey, some individuals believe that since hazardous changes like landfills are not in their area, they are not being poisoned.
“This silence destroys everyone and leads to the silent witnessing of the death of society and the earth,” she said.
However, Trickey believes there is hope and, “every time a person takes steps for social change the world heals.” The Prairie View A&M student body, faculty and staff, and Waller County residents teamed up to host anti-landfill rally, Helping Ourselves Protect the Environment, Tuesday afternoon.
Rally participants, including New Black Panther party leader and community activist Quanell X, walked from Hempstead City Hall to Waller County Courthouse where a commissioner’s court public hearing and meeting was held to discuss the residential concerns about the impending landfill.
After the rally, students, faculty and staff traveled back to the university for a Students Participating in Transcending Knowledge lecture featuring rally special guest Minnijean Brown Trickey, a member of the Little Rock Nine.
The Little Rock Nine were a group of black students who attended a desegregated high school in 1957, three years after the historic U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Brown v. Board of Education.
The Arkansas National Guard tried to help keep the school segregated, but President Dwight Eisenhower sent a division of the United States Army to ensure the students safety as they attended school.
Trickey applauded Prairie View Students for their attempts at social activism against the Highway 6 landfill with personal tales of resistance.
Her experiences taught her to laud the importance of movement, placing impact on the importance of individual experiences.
“A clever mind resists in ways the regular mind does not understand,” said Trickey
According to Trickey it is important to tell your own stories.
“If you do not tell individual stories, they are told for you” and these stories may not be accurate,” she said.
She explained how the encounters of each of the Little Rock Nine were common, but also unique.
Prarie View A&M
Tuesday, June 24, 2025