Several Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School students are hosting an event Wednesday featuring former student activist Mary Beth Tinker to the power of young voices and to raise awareness about their efforts to stage an exhibit on contemporary teenage culture at the 2025 Smithsonian Folklife Festival.
“When the Weight of the World Won’t Wait,” will be held from 4 to 7 p.m. at the Kay Spiritual Life Center at American University, 4400 Massachusetts Ave. NW, in Washington, D.C. Free and open to the public, it will include a panel discussion with Tinker and performances of spoken word poetry, music and dancing by students from B-CC, Sherwood High School in Sandy Spring, Walt Whitman High School in Bethesda and Jackson-Reed High School in the District.
Tinker, the keynote speaker, was one of the student activists behind the 1969 U.S. Supreme Court decision Tinker v. Des Moines, which ruled that students and teachers “do not shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate.” Tinker grew up in Iowa and now lives in Washington, D.C.
The event is the first in a series to be hosted by the B-CC students, who are also working alongside other teens in the Washington, D.C., area, to bring their proposed Folklife Festival exhibit from idea to reality and to discuss the pressures that teens face to solve societal problems. Contemporary American teen culture is one of the themes of the 2025 festival and the B-CC group hopes to raise about $2 million to stage the exhibit and other pop-ups leading up to the festival, according to the students.
“Gun violence and school shootings, it won’t wait, and a lot of teenagers feel like in order to get something done they have to be the first ones to set it up,” said Elana Bilbao, a junior at B-CC who is moderating the panel discussion with Tinker. “Like they can’t just wait for the adults to and especially the government to pass legislation or to make their own efforts in changing these issues.”
Bilbao and the others involved in organizing the event are students in anthropology and cultural studies courses taught by B-CC teacher David Lopilato.
Lopilato’s students have interviewed girls in Afghanistan about their school experiences, produced podcasts about teen life and are working on the exhibit for the Smithsonian Folklife Festival. The interactive exhibit will focus on the life, culture and perspective of teenagers for the Smithsonian Folklife Festival in 2025. One of the cultures represented at the festival will be teen American Contemporary culture.
With more than a year to go before the 2025 festival, the students said during a Zoom interview with MoCo360 that they are hoping to raise awareness about their efforts and to garner support and collaboration from teens in Maryland, Virginia and the District.
Wednesday’s event will be presented with the help of the Museum of the Contemporary American Teenager (MoCAT), American University, the Smithsonian Folklife Festival and the Kennedy Center. Students and Tinker will explore topics such as American teen culture, student activism and the power of young voices.
“We specifically wanted to talk to [Tinker] because she was one of the first national symbols of teen activism,” Bilbao said. “… And the fact that her case got to the Supreme Court and they allowed students in the future to carry on with their freedom of expression is definitely important now.”
In December 1965, Tinker and a group of students from Des Moines wore black armbands to school to protest the Vietnam War and show support for a truce, according to Justia. At the time, the Des Moines Independent School District prohibited the armbands and suspended Tinker along with four other students after they wore the armbands. Parents of the suspended students sued the school district for infringing on their children’s First Amendment rights and their case eventually made its way to the Supreme Court.
Now 72, Tinker tours the country speaking about her role in the landmark Supreme Court case, free speech and the importance of civic awareness, according to the Tinker Tour website.
“Teens across the region are speaking up about all the issues that affect them, from peace in Gaza and Israel, to the climate emergency, and more,” Tinker wrote in an email to MoCo360. “I am so looking forward to being with them this week at American University!”
During the Zoom interview, B-CC junior Sophia Borlase said student organizers hope Wednesday’s event will highlight the pressure teens feel to be the “next generation that [is] going to fix everything,” including societal issues ranging from climate change to gun control.
Rachel Watkins, associate professor and chair of the Department of Anthropology at American University who is facilitating the collaboration, said Wednesday’s event is “really about giving students the space to discover who they really are.”
“What we try to impart to students is that you have a choice, and you have a role to play in shaping that world,” Watkins said. “… Life doesn’t just happen to you. You are an agent, and you have a right and a role to play in shaping what the world looks like, what the world is and how life experiences are named.”
At the end of the event, attendees can visit the “Weight of the World” art exhibit in American University’s Bender Library. The exhibit features B-CC student artwork, excerpts from essays written by teens on the pressure they feel to solve societal problems as well as newspaper clippings from B-CC’s student-run news publication the Tattler.
B-CC students are hoping to involve teens from all over the region in their future events and the Folklife Festival exhibit. Students who are interested can fill out an interest form to receive information and meeting invitations.
To RSVP for Wednesday’s event, click this link.