2021
Hello ,
In mid-December 1965, as Americans prepared for the holidays, baking cookies, buying gifts, setting up their menorah or Christmas tree, the country stood at a turning point.
The United Stated had sent ground troops to South Vietnam earlier that year and continued a daily barrage of targeted bomb attacks on North Vietnam. The war was only just beginning to escalate.
As we know, there was no turning back in Vietnam. But at a small Quaker Meeting in Iowa, a handful of teenagers decided they could not stand by and do nothing.
Their brave action had no impact on the conflict in Southeast Asia, but it did result in a historic Supreme Court decision, a cornerstone of student rights in America that still stands today.
"History is made by the small actions of ordinary people." ~Mary Beth Tinker.
The first major battle in South Vietnam had occurred mid-November between US troops and the North Vietnamese Army. The death toll at Ia Drang, 155 American soldiers and 124 wounded shocked the country.
Foreground and center bodies of American Soldiers slain in first hours of battle in Ia Drang Valley. (Peter Arnett/AP Photo)
Ten days later, 35,000 anti-war protesters gathered at the White House and marched to the Washington Monument.
Defense Secretary McNamara returned from a visit to South Vietnam and privately warned if President Lyndon Johnson's policies continued, he should expect 1000 American deaths per month. He told the president the North
Vietnamese were preparing for a long war, believing "their staying power is superior to ours."
In mid-December Senator Robert Kennedy called for a Christmas truce in Vietnam.
A handful of students in Des Moines, Iowa, decided to black armbands to school to show support for the truce and mourn the dead on both sides in Vietnam. "I was getting sadder and sadder," said 13-year-old Mary Beth Tinker.
"All we knew was that there was a terrible war, and it was getting worse. On the TV news, children raced from burning huts in Vietnam, soldiers lay on the ground or in coffins with flags." Mary Beth
explained later.
"We didnʼt know all the history or politics of the war, but then, neither did most Americans. We just knew that for many families,
there would be no happy holiday.
School superintendents in Des Moines got wind of the students plan to wear black armbands to school and moved to prohibit such a demonstration before it could happen. They issued a policy banning armbands at school. Students who wore them would be suspended.
Several high school students wore the black armbands at different schools where they appeared not to be noticed. But Mary Beth Tinker, an eighth grader at Harding Junior High and Chris Eckhardt, a student at Roosevelt High School were both called to the office and asked to remove the black bands. They refused and were suspended.
The next day Mary Beth's older brother John decided to wear an armband but her was nervous. Walking to school he had the armband in his pocket.
"I was sort of embarrassed to put it on in front of people. I went from Orchestra practice. When that was over, I went up to our homeroom. I still didn't want to pin it on in homeroom class," John Tinker said later.
"[After homeroom] I went into the restroom and kind of struggled really with a safety pin trying to pin it on the other arm with one hand. One of the other students came into the restroom and saw me struggling like that and he helped me pin the armband on.
Mary Beth and John Tinker display their black armbands after they hit the local and national news.
John wore the arm band to three classes that day and nobody said anything, but eventually he was called to the principal's office and suspended.
Five students total were suspended, and that, said Mary Beth was when the haters came out of the woodwork. They started throwing red paint at our house and threatened to bomb our house.
A woman called on the phone and said, “Is this Mary Beth Tinker?” And I said yes, and she said, “I’m going to kill you.” I was 13 years old in the 8th grade."
The Tinkers also received threatening letters, but some people in town stood up for them, one of them an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union who took the case when Mary Beth and John's parents decided to suit.
After winter break the students went back to school minus their armbands, and the case went back and forth in court for several years, finally reaching the Supreme Court.
The high court ruling in Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District, February 14, 1969, came down a vote of 7-2 in a resounding victory student's fight to free speech and expression.
The famous words that still hold true today were written by Justice Abe Fortes in the majority opinion.
"[Neither] students or teachers shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate."
Mary Beth says the day she wore the black armband to school she was nervous and scared. She never could have imagined a small action would make such a big difference.
Sources
https://www.iowapbs.org/iowapathways/artifact/john-tinker-describes-first-day-wearing-black-armband-school-protest-vietnam
https://nowthisnews.com/videos/news/mary-beth-tinker-talks-about-her-role-in-the-history-of-student-rights
https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/opinion/columnists /iowa-view/2015/12/12/tinker-turns-50-students-mighty-times-again/77115952/
https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/2015/12/12/remembering-tinkers-protest-50-years-later/77196134/
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