Journey to Little Rock. - Review - movie review

TAKE ONE, May, 2001 by Tom Mcsorley

2000 52m, prod North East Productions, p Maria Yongmee Shin, d Rob Thompson; with Minnijean Brown Trickey

This thoughtful film chronicles the remarkable life of Minnijean Brown Trickey, one of the members of the famed "Little Rock Nine." In 1957 in Little Rock, Arkansas, nine black high-school students were escorted by U.S. Army soldiers to the formerly white-only high school during those explosive early days of desegregation. Forged in that crucible of intolerance, Minnijean's life of political activism seems inevitable. She went on to university married, moved with her husband to Canada during the Vietnam War and lived on the land in northern Ontario. In recent years, she has fought prejudice and injustice throughout Canada. As she reflects on her life, the film weaves itself around the 1997 Little Rock Nine 40th-anniversary celebrations at the White House, where another Little Rocker, President Bill Clinton, awarded them Congressional medals for bravery While it loses its sharp focus in connecting Minnijean to a variety of contemporary protest movements, Journey to Little Rock smartly refuses the temptation to romanticize its subject and offers revealing, painful glimpses of the personal costs of political struggle. Nothing is given. All must be fought for. There is a price to be paid, but, as Minnijean's extraordinary life so passionately demonstrates, when it comes to political and social change, it's up to us.