In 1965, I was the 13 year old who, along with a group of students including my brother John and our friend Chris Eckhardt, was suspended for wearing black armbands to a Des Moines, Iowa school to mourn the dead in Vietnam. For that, we faced harassment and even death threats.

The ACLU came to our defense, winning a landmark Supreme Court decision in Tinker v Des Moines (1969).