Free Speech Icon Mary Beth Tinker Launches Crowdsourcing Campaign to Complete Nationwide Civics Education Bus Trip to …

Washington, DC (PRWEB) February 12, 2014

Mary Beth Tinker, a plaintiff in the landmark 1969 students rights case Tinker v Des Moines, launched a crowdsource campaign (http://www.startsomegood.com/tinkertourwest) today to finish her national civics education tour, the Tinker Tour, with visits to at least 12 western states this spring.

This fall, Tinker and student rights attorney Mike Hiestand traveled 16,000 miles across the Eastern half of the country -- from Massachusetts to Michigan to Mississippi -- stopping at nearly 60 schools, colleges, libraries, courts, a student detention facility and several national conventions. Tinker shared her story with more than 20,000 students and teachers while also talking with them about free press, free speech and civics education. More information about the tour is available on the Tinker Tour Web site (http://www.tinkertourusa.org).

The Tinker Tour, which began on Constitution Day in Philadelphia, coincides with the 50th anniversary of a number of major civil rights anniversaries such as the Birmingham Childrens March and Mississippis Freedom Summer, events that Tinker says had a huge effect on her, and even on the Tinker ruling by the Supreme Court.

I was a child growing up during a time much like today, when there was great inequality as well as war. I was only thirteen years old, but I wanted to speak up. When I saw the Birmingham Children on TV in 1963, that helped inspire me.

Then, when three civil rights workers, Chaney, Schwarner and Goodman, were killed in Mississippi in the summer of 1964, Tinkers parents went to Mississippi to volunteer with Freedom Summer. Tinker said that their bravery, as well as the stories her parents brought back about the civil rights workers, like Fannie Lou Hamer, also motivated her.

Tinker learned recently that Freedom Summer influenced her case even more than she realized. In the Tinker ruling, the Supreme Court cited a 1967 Appeals Court ruling that high school students in Mississippi should not have been suspended for wearing buttons to school to protest the killings there in 1964.

This year is huge in civil rights history, said Tinker. And, its so important to pass along these stories that inspire young people, just like they were passed along to me.

In 1965, Tinker, along with her brother, John, and Chris Eckhardt, the other plaintiff, wore black armbands to school to mourn the dead in Vietnam. When they were suspended, the case was argued by the ACLU at the Supreme Court, which ruled that neither students or teachers leave their Constitutional rights at the schoolhouse gate.

Now, the ruling is cited by liberals and conservatives alike. In November, it was featured by the Liberty Institute at a Supreme Court Historical Society event.

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Free Speech Icon Mary Beth Tinker Launches Crowdsourcing Campaign to Complete Nationwide Civics Education Bus Trip to ...