Tully Center | Free speech advocate discusses civil rights

When the charred bodies of four young girls were found in the back stairwell of a Baptist church in Alabama in 1963, free speech advocate Mary Beth Tinker felt connected to them and other youth suffering during the civil rights movement.

I related to those girls because they were about my age, she said to students, professors and community members at the Joyce Hergenhan Auditorium on Monday night. I wondered if their church basement was like our church basement.

After that, Tinker said, she started getting more involved. The 11-year-old started picketing.

Tinker, an early pioneer for students free speech rights, spoke at an event titled At the Schoolhouse Gate: Freedom of Speech in Schools A Conversation with Mary Beth Tinker as part of the Tully Center for Free Speechs Distinguished Speaker Series.

Her decision to protest the Vietnam War by wearing an armband to school led to a landmark decision by the U.S. Supreme Court that upheld students rights to free speech. The decision continues to influence school speech cases, and Tinker still advocates for what she called the power of youth to take things forward.

Early childhood experiences in Iowa instilled in Tinker a strong moral obligation to advocate for peace. Her parents, Tinker said, kept speaking up for justice during the civil rights movement. With her five siblings, she watched images of the Vietnam War unfold on television.

As kids, we were so moved by that, she said.

As a 13-year-old, Tinker wore a black armband to junior high school in protest of the Vietnam War. She, her brother and his friend were ultimately suspended for violating a policy the towns principals and superintendent hastily crafted after reading a news article about the upcoming protest in the high school paper, Tinker said.

With assistance from the American Civil Liberties Union, Tinker and the other students sued the school district for infringing on their First Amendment rights. Although she didnt like breaking official rules, Tinker said she felt that kids should have rights.

We were just wearing these little armbands, she said. We werent doing anything to hurt or bother anyone. The Tinker family received hate mail and a bomb threat on Christmas Eve. They lost cases at district and appellate courts. But four years later, the U.S. Supreme Court heard Tinkers case.

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Tully Center | Free speech advocate discusses civil rights