Mary Beth Tinker visited Michigan for the 2013 Michigan Interscholastic Press Association (MIPA) conference in Lansing on October 21. Tinker and her two brothers are the family responsible for the acknowledged rights of young people. More specifically, she stressed the right of free speech.
Tinker spoke to over 2,000 students and adults, telling her story how she and her two brothers revolutionized our country and the respect for young adults.
In 1963, Tinker sat in front of her television in Iowa, watching kids stand up against segregation while Martin Luther King was imprisoned. Tinker’s mother and father, who was a preacher, protested against the inequality as well.
In 1965, 13 year old Tinker watched another tragedy flash across her television screen. This time, she reflected on images of children running from huts and body bags of dead soldiers scattered on the ground. The Vietnam war had affected thousands of people worldwide. Growing up in a Christian household, Tinker and her two Brothers did not agree with the grief of war.
Tinker’s brother John had the idea to protest the war by wearing black armbands to school the next day. Hesitant to follow the idea, Tinker wore her black arm band to school the next day.
“I was very scared. I was very nervous; I was a shy girl,” Tinker said.
When the family planned to wear the arm bands, information was published from the school stating that whoever wore a black armband to school would be suspended. Tinker skewed from the rule.
Wearing the black armband to school, Tinker was suspended. The case was taken to court and appealed several times. When it had reached the Supreme Court, the Tinker family won. The Tinker v. Des Moines Independent School District case declared that students do have rights, the same as an adult.
In addition to telling her story, Tinker introduced a man whose father was drafted into Vietnam to illustrate the horrors of the war and why her family stood against it. She also asked students about their rights and connected to them with her outgoing, energetic personality.