Tinker Historical Background

By 1965, the Vietnam War had been waging for over a decade. American and Vietnamese causalities were increasing and the conflict was highlighted on the evening news. Students like Mary Beth Tinker, John Tinker, and Christopher Eckhardt knew they could not sit back and watch this happen. When Senator Robert F. Kennedy called for a cease-fire between the North and South Vietnamese, these students joined others across the country by wearing black armbands to school support the truce. Story continued below.

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At the same time the Vietnam War was being fought, a civil rights movement was happening across America. Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on an Alabama bus, nine African American students are met with resistance and violence when trying to attend Little Rock Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, and three young civil rights workers are murdered in Mississippi during Freedom Summer, a movement to register African Americans to vote. The Tinker and Eckhardt families were active in the civil rights movement and passed these values on to their children. Story continued on the next page.

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