Journey to Little Rock: The Untold Story of Minnijean Brown Trickey (Dir. Rob Thompson/ Prod. Maria Yongmee Shin), about the Canadian social activist and one of the Little Rock Nine civil rights pioneers, is the winner of the top audience awards at the Sprockets Toronto International Film Festival (Best Feature) and at the Oscar-qualifying Chicago International Children's Film Festival (Best of Fest). It was the first documentary to win these prestigious audience awards over dramas and animations.

The film has screened before sold out audiences across North America, in the UK, the Netherlands and Africa including at FESPACO, the largest festival in Africa.

It is being used to reach out to young people about non-violence. In Northern Ireland, some of the toughest boys in the most violent neighbourhoods were inspired to pick-up cameras instead of guns and decided not to participate in a riot that later killed their friends. Across Rwanda, the film helped diffuse the anger and allowed the audiences to reflect.

A dramatic motion picture adaptation of the documentary, working title Hearts and Minds, is being developed by North-East Pictures because of the interest in Hollywood based on these results - the only story of its kind today that could save lives.

September 25, 2007, marked the 50th anniversary of the Little Rock school desegregation crisis. Minnijean Brown Trickey and the other members of the Little Rock Nine were honoured at a series of commemoration events leading up to a fundraising gala for the Little Rock Nine Foundation's Scholarship Fund chaired by former President Bill Clinton, and a ceremony in front of the Central High School where the "Nine" members all spoke publicly for the first time before a mesmerized crowd, with President Clinton and the presidential candidate Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton looking on.

Ten years earlier in 1997, President Clinton had spoken stirringly during the 40th commemoration ceremony as the sitting president and the first to apologize to the Nine for the humiliations and the abuses they, their families and their community endured in 1957.

Journey to Little Rock captures the events of the 40th commemoration and the White House ceremony where Clinton awarded the Little Rock Nine with the Congressional Gold Medal - the only film to document this historic event and an important presidential speech on civil rights and race relations in many years.

For Minnijean Brown Trickey, Little Rock was only the first step in an amazing journey of the heart, mind and spirit. The film traces her remarkable life as a life-long activist who never lost the courage of her convictions - from the move to Canada with her white husband during the Vietnam War, the fight to save the Temagami forest and supporting Aboriginal rights, to becoming an organic farmer and raising six children. It also reveals the painful periods through her divorce, the Toronto police beating of her son Isaiah, and her bittersweet return to the United States.

Currently, Brown Trickey is working on her memoir Mixed Blessings and speaking to audiences, particularly young people, across North America. She is a consultant on education and race relations matters and makes regular appearances in the media, including CNN, CBC, NPR and others. Her story continues to receive extensive media coverage on TV, radio, print and the Internet.

During this trip, Brown Trickey will be in Toronto and Ottawa to speak to a variety of audiences including police officers, youth groups and the general public. Along with the CKLN benefit screening of Journey to Little Rock at the Revue Cinema, she will be attending a benefit screening at the National Art Gallery in Ottawa on November 4 for the Somali Youth Basketball League that is planning a tournament next summer dedicated to the Little Rock Nine.