Ordinary Americans sometimes find themselves at the center of some of the biggest moments in constitutional history. John Tinker, one of the students who brought the lawsuit in the landmark student speech case Tinker v. Des Moines; Karen Korematsu, daughter of Fred Korematsu, petitioner in the Japanese internment case Korematsu v. United States; and Cheryl Brown Henderson, daughter of Rev. Oliver Brown the petitioner in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka share what that’s like. They describe their families’ experiences with these landmark cases, and how those cases shaped the Constitution and the country. Mike Adams, director of education at the National Constitution Center, moderates
This program was recorded at the National Constitution Center on Constitution Day 2017 in front of a student audience.
Participants
- John Tinker is an activist and currently works as Chief Engineer at KPIP community radio station in Fayette, Missouri. In 1965, he participated in a public display of protest of the Vietnam War while a high school student. In 1969, he, his sister, and their co-plaintiff won their precedent-setting Supreme Court case upholding the First Amendment rights of public school students. He is currently working to create an educational foundation devoted to supporting the First Amendment rights of students and teachers within public schools and to encourage civil dialogue across boundaries.
- Karen Korematsu is the founder of the Fred Korematsu Civil Rights Fund, sponsored by Asian Americans Advancing Justice/Asian Law Caucus. She is the daughter of Fred Korematsu, who challenged the internment orders during World War II. In 2009, on the 25th anniversary of the reversal of Fred Korematsu’s WWII U.S. Supreme Court conviction, she established the Fred T. Korematsu Institute for Civil Rights and Education as a community program with the Asian Law Caucus (ALC), now known as Asian Americans Advancing Justice-Asian Law Caucus in San Francisco. Since her father’s passing in 2005, Korematsu has been carrying on her father’s legacy through education as a civil rights advocate, public speaker and teacher workshop presenter.
- Cheryl Brown Henderson is one of the three daughters of the late Rev. Oliver L. Brown who in the fall of 1950 along with 12 other parents, led by attorneys for the NAACP, filed suit on behalf of their children against the local Board of Education. Their case joined with cases from Delaware, South Carolina, Virginia and Washington, D.C. on appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court and on May 17, 1954, became known as the landmark decision; Brown v. the Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas. Henderson is the Founding President of the Brown Foundation for Educational Equity, Excellence and Research, and owner of Brown & Associates, an educational consulting firm. She worked with Congress and the National Park Service to establish a National Historic Site to preserve sites associated with the landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling of 1954.
- Mike Adams serves as Director of Education at the National Constitution Center, in Philadelphia, overseeing educator relationship-building, the national Teacher Advisory Board, teacher professional development programs, creation of instructional resources, design and assessment of student workshops, and other key educational initiatives. Since joining the Center, in 2015, he has presented at more than 40 state, regional, and national education conferences and facilitated more than 60 educator professional development programs at the museum and at schools throughout the country. He holds an M.S. of Education and a B.S. of Secondary Education Social Studies from Temple University and teaching certifications in secondary Social Studies and English Language Arts.
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