Editor: Z’nya McSpadden Published: February 1958

Just four years ago in the beginning of the 1954 Supreme Court decision Brown vs. Board of Education banned racial segregation in public schools, representatives from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) searched for students who would enroll in previously all-white schools throughout the south. Minnijean Brown was one of them.

Minnijean Brown is the oldest of four children born to Willle brown and Imogene. Earlier this school year on December 17, 1957, while walking through the cafiteria she was being harassed and dropped her tray on two the heads of two male students and was suspended for six days. After her return from her suspension a male student spilled soup on her and he was only suspended for two days.

Just a few days ago, a group of girls threw a purse filled with combination locks at Minnijean. She responded by calling the girls “white trash” and was immediately expelled. Students are now passing around notes and holding signs stating, “One down, eight to go.”

Minnijean Brown has been expelled from Central High School, in Arkansas for retailiating against the attacks and is the first to be expelled from this highschool and the first one to be suspended from the highschool.