Remember Mary Beth Tinker from Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District? Black armband? She’s going on tour!
Mary Beth Tinker was just 13 when she spoke out against the Vietnam War by wearing a black armband to her Iowa school in 1965. When the school suspended her, she took her free speech case all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court and won. Now 61, she’s quit her part-time job as a nurse and will travel the country telling her story.
Tinker will visit her first school Monday in Philadelphia. After that, she’s scheduled to travel by RV to 18 states and the District of Columbia as part of what’s being called the “Tinker Tour.” She’ll log 10,000 to 15,000 miles, the equivalent of driving across the country three to five times, before her tour ends Nov. 25 in suburban Kansas City. Along the way, she’ll stop at more than three dozen locations, most of them schools, and she plans a tour of schools in western states in the spring. Her message: Students should take action on issues important to them.
You can learn more about the tour here.