Little Rock Central High School: The Case Of Minnijean Brown

History is a comprised of individual choices. Those choices can work to include or exclude others. In 1957 nine black students chose to integrate Little Rock Central High School and a whole group of white kids worked to exclude them. There are three sets of primary source documents about the expulsion of one of these Little Rock Nine, Minnijean Brown. These document sets change one’s thinking about this expulsion because the first documents suggest that she was expelled for dumping chili on a white boy; the second sets of documents suggest that she was expelled because she retaliated against a white girl; and the final documents state that the expulsion was because she was acting as if she belonged at Central High School.

In the 1986 documentary Eyes on the Prize, a student, Craig Rains, suggests that Minnijean Brown was expelled for dumping chili on a

The notice states that one reason for her expulsion is the fact that she retaliated against a white girl named Frankie Gregg. The suspension notice explains that Minnijean Brown was being suspended after she agreed that she would not retaliate verbally or physically. She then ignored that agreement by calling Frankie Gregg white trash, after Frankie threw a purse at Minnijean. Also, on June 24, 1958, sixteen year old, Minnijean Brown was in an edition of Look Magazine. It stated that during homeroom, Frankie was teasing Minnijean so she yelled at her saying, “Don’t say anything more to me, white trash” (Doc C). This shows that the chili incident was not the only reason why Minnijean Brown was expelled. This is because both documents explain other reasons why she got expelled. As a result of reading these documents, it is clear that the chili incident wasn’t what really got her expelled. There are other documents that still need to be analyzed to investigate the expulsion