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National Association for Interpretation Announces Minnijean Brown Trickey and Spirit Tawfiq to Speak at National Conference in Little Rock, Arkansas
April 27. 2023
Fort Collins, CO The National Association for Interpretation ( is pleased to announce Minnijean Brown Trickey and Spirit Tawfiq at the NAI National Conference, “Building Bridges,” November 7 11, 2023.
Brown Trickey, the recipient of numerous awards f or her community work for social justice, is widely known as one of the nine African American students who collectively resisted opposition to desegregate Little Rock Central High School in 1957. With the Little Rock Nine, she received the NAACP Spingarn M edal and the Congressional Gold Medal. Brown Trickey continues as a nonviolence and antiracism facilitator, teacher, and motivational speaker to this day.
Tawfiq, an antiracism educator and founder of Roots of the Spirit, created this organization to uproot racism through storytelling, education, and the arts. As creator and host of the podcast ‘Roots of the Spirit,’ Tawfiq galvanizes change through honest conversations about identity, race, racism, and intersecting social justice issues. Previously in her career, she was an interpreter with the National Park Service and the Smithsonian Institution. She is the daughter of Minnijean Brown Trickey.
“Minnijean Brown Trickey’s and Spirit Tawfiq’s messages are emblematic of our conference theme of ‘Building Bridg es,’” NAI Executive Director Paul Caputo said. “Their use of storytelling to highlight the lessons to be learned from painful histories, and to counter contemporary injustice, is awe inspiring and demonstrates the power of interpretation.”
For more information regarding the NAI National Conference, visit www.interpnet.com/conference.
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The National Association for Interpretation acknowledges, with respect, that our headquarters in Fort Collins, Colorado, is located on the traditional and ancestral homel ands of the Arapaho, Cheyenne, and Ute Nations and peoples. This was also a site of trade, gathering, and healing for numerous other Native tribes. We recognize the Indigenous peoples as original and current stewards of this land and all the relatives with in it. As these words of acknowledgment are spoken and heard, the ties Nations have to their traditional homelands are renewed and reaffirmed.
The National Association for Interpretation ( is a 501(c)(3) not for profit professional organization dedicated to advancing the profession of heritage interpretation, currently serving about 6,500 members in the United States, Canada, and over thirty other nations. Individual members include those who work at parks, museums, nature centers, zoos, botanical gard ens, aquariums, historical and cultural sites, commercial tour companies, and theme parks. Commercial and institutional members include those who provide services to the heritage interpretation industry.