John and Mary Beth Tinker Describe Their Testimony During Court Cases

John and Mary Beth Tinker describe their experiences providing testimony during court cases, as well as their perspective on the intentions of those questioning the actions of students practicing their freedom of speech to protest the Vietnam War.

Mary Beth Tinker was a 13-year-old junior high school student in December 1965 when she, her brother John, 15, and their friend Christopher Eckhardt, 16, wore black armbands to school to protest the war in Vietnam. That decision led the students and their families to embark on a four-year court battle that culminated in the landmark 1969 U.S. Supreme Court decision for student free speech: Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District.
 
This interview was recorded on February 21, 2019 at Iowa PBS studios in Johnston, Iowa.

John: At the court when I testified, I went first and our lawyer Dan Johnston was a very kind. he understood that we were young people.

He helped us. He really, I don't know, there was something about his tone and his manner that I didn't feel nervous.

I didn't feel nervous. I was all dressed up in formal clothes. I had a tie on and a white shirt and a suit coat; and I had a number of friends in the courtroom, both my age and and also adults that supported us in the courtroom.

I don't remember being afraid. Basically, we told the story. Dan elicited the story. Then Allan Herrick, who was the lawyer, the attorney for the school system, cross-examined us.

I remember his manner was... I could just intuit where he was going. I could tell what he was up to. He was trying to paint a picture that wasn't there. He had a rough kind of gruff, raspy voice, gravelly voice.

I was kind of smiling inwardly, honestly, when he was asking me questions.

He'd say did you have discussions at home?

I said well of course we did, around the dinner table.

He said were there violent discussions? We they violent discussions?

I said well we had strong discussions, but we weren't hitting each other over it.

He was trying to show that we didn't have enough knowledge about the world to be opposed to the war.

I felt very strongly that he was wrong at the time, and I still feel strongly that he was wrong at the time. I felt that we did have enough information about the war to see that it was wrong, and I never changed my mind about the war. I always thought it was wrong.

The testimony was I mean, I was kind of glad when it was over. I have to say I kind of enjoyed it at the time.

Mary Beth: The school board attorney, the school board attorneys and many others always wanted to make it seem that we didn't know anything. We didn't know what we were doing, and it had to be the adults manipulating us and telling us what to do.

In the trial they would say, well who pinned on the armband? Was it your mother? Who got the cloth?

But you see by then our mother didn't have to pin on the cloth. They didn't have to, because we had internalized the values already of our parents to believe in peace, to believe in speaking up for what you believe in.

Of course we were influenced by our parents, but young people do have feelings and they do have thoughts

That's why this case is really a youth rights case about young people having thoughts, having ideas, having feelings and being able to express them.

John: They ask us where did you get the cloth? They were trying to set us up.

Well you know if your parents bought it.

But our parents hadn't bought the cloth. We had bought the cloth. I went up to the to the dime store and bought the cloth.

Mary Beth: I didn’t know that.

John: No, I went and bought the the the black cloth. Later we added white peace symbols to the cloth, out of a white iron-on patch material. We were enterprising, you know, kids.

I remember spraying the armband with starch you know and folding over the hem and making it right, you know. It was very definitely a kids project to do it. The adults supported us in it; but they didn't put us up to it, and I think that's a really important point.

I don't know why it would matter all that much. Say a kid is a Christian and their parents are Christians or if they're Jewish right and they go to school wearing a cross or a Star of David you don't say to the kid, Did your parents put you up to that?

It's like that's part of the culture of that family. To protest the war was part of the culture of our family. It was a very organic act for us to protest the war.