
Mary Beth Tinker, left, with her mother during a school board meeting discussing her suspension for wearing a black arm band to protest the Vietnam War. (Courtesy Mary Beth Tinker)
Forty-eight years after sporting a black armband to school to protest the Vietnam War, Mary Beth Tinker is traveling the country talking to school children about her landmark Supreme Court case as well as the Constitution.
In 1965, Tinker was suspended after wearing a black armband to her eighth-grade classroom to protest a war was costing thousands of American lives. The case eventually went to the Supreme Court, which ruled in favor of her and other students, and is still cited often in First Amendment cases.
So far, the Tinker Tour has gone to schools in 18 states.