News

UA-PTC to feature civil rights leaders in virtual event Feb. 4

UA – Pulaski Tech will present a virtual event, Minnijean Brown and Spirit Tawfiq: A Legacy of Resistance: An Intergenerational Conversation about Activism on Feb. 4, 2021 at 7 p.m. Janis F. Kearney will moderate the discussion.

The event is offered free of charge. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the event.

Minnijean Brown Trickey made history as one of the Little Rock Nine, the nine African-American students who desegregated Little Rock Central High School in 1957. The world watched as they braved constant intimidation and threats from those who opposed desegregation of the formerly all-white high school.

Trickey is a social activist and has worked on behalf of peacemaking, environmental issues, developing youth leadership, diversity education and training, cross-cultural communication, and gender and social justice advocacy. She served in the Clinton administration as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Workforce Diversity at the Department of the Interior from 1999 to 2001. She has taught social work at Carleton University in Ottawa Canada and in various community colleges in Canada.

Spirit Tawfiq is an Antiracism Educator & founder of Roots of the Spirit, an organization created to uproot racism through Storytelling, Education and the Arts. She is the creator and host of Roots of the Spirit Podcast, a space to galvanize change through honest conversations about identity, “race,” racism and intersecting social justice issues.
As a professional speaker and playwright, Spirit speaks and hosts workshops in k-12 classrooms, colleges, universities and organizations about her legacy as the daughter of Minnijean Brown Trickey.

Janis Kearney was the publisher of the historic Arkansas State Press and later served as presidential diarist to U.S. president Bill Clinton from 1995 to 2001, the first such appointment in presidential history. She has authored multiple books, including a memoir, Cotton Field of Dreams; Conversations; a novel, Once Upon a Time There Was a Girl: A Murder at Mobile Bay; and the second installment of her memoir, Something to Write Home About: Memories of a Presidential Diarist. In 2014, she published Sundays with TJ: 100 Years of Memories on Varner Road, about her father.

The event is sponsored by the Little Rock Central High School National Historic Site.

The Center for Humanities and Arts (CHARTS) is located at UA - Pulaski Technical College’s Main campus at 3000 West Scenic Drive in North Little Rock, Ark. For more information contact Kurt Leftwich, CHARTS Programming and Box Office Coordinator, at (501) 812-2831 or [email protected].