Daisy Bates
Daisy Bates was a prominent civil rights activist and journalist, born on November 11, 1914, in Huttig, Arkansas. Her early life was marked by tragedy, including the violent murder of her mother, which ignited her passion for activism. Bates played a crucial role in the civil rights movement, particularly as the president of the Arkansas chapter of the NAACP, making her the first woman to hold this position. She is best known for her advocacy during the integration of Little Rock Central High School, where she mentored the nine African American students known as the Little Rock Nine, providing them support amid significant racial hostility.
In addition to her activism, Bates co-founded and edited The Arkansas State Press, a newspaper that highlighted issues of police brutality and advocated for the African American community. Her work led to notable confrontations with local authorities but also garnered national attention, including a significant Supreme Court case that protected the NAACP from disclosing its membership records. Bates was one of the few women to speak at the 1963 March on Washington, further solidifying her place in history as a leading female figure in the civil rights movement. She passed away on November 4, 1999, leaving behind a legacy of courageous advocacy for racial equality.
Subject Terms
Daisy Bates
- Born: November 11, 1914
- Birthplace: Huttig, Arkansas
- Died: November 4, 1999
- Place of death: Little Rock, Arkansas
Journalist and activist
Bates was an activist journalist and civil rights leader who served as the mentor and spokeswoman for the nine African American students who integrated Little Rock Central High School in 1957.
Areas of achievement: Civil rights; Journalism and publishing; Social issues
Early Life
Daisy Bates was born on November 11, 1914, in the town of Huttig, Arkansas. According to Bates, her childhood was marked by a horrific event: He mother was murdered while resisting three white men who were trying to rape her. Her father fled shortly after the murder. Bates said the event—which she learned about as an adult—fueled her anger and activism throughout her entire life. However, Bates’s biographer, Grif Stockley, has called Bates’s account into question, citing the absence of any record of such a murder in Huttig during this time period. Regardless of the circumstances, Bates was raised in a loving home by foster parents Orlie and Susie Smith.
After graduating from high school, Bates met Lucius Christopher “L. C.” Bates, a journalist. In 1941, she and L. C. moved to Little Rock, Arkansas, to start The Arkansas State Press, a weekly newspaper to serve the African American community. They married on May 4, 1942. Daisy Bates also resumed her schooling, attending Shorter Business College, and joined the local branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). Bates and L. C. turned The Arkansas State Press into an outspoken advocate of civil rights. They published stories about the police killing of an African American soldier, Thomas Foster. Although several businesses boycotted the newspaper in protest, the articles attracted the attention of the U.S. Justice Department, which convened a grand jury. On July 17, 1942, the State Press published photographs of two white police officers accused of raping an African American teenager, Rosa Lee Cherry, on June 15, 1942. The newspaper was harassed and sued for publishing its articles on police brutality, but Bates continued her crusading journalism.
Life’s Work
In 1952, Bates was elected president of the Arkansas chapter of the NAACP, a first for a woman. She had agitated against segregation from her teenage years. In 1954, when the United States Supreme Court made its historic ruling in Brown v. Board of Education, Bates pushed aggressively for the integration of the Little Rock schools. In the spring of 1957, Little Rock Central High School selected nine African American students for enrollment amid rising racial tensions in the city. As the local NAACP president, Bates became the chief confidante for the nine students (known as the Little Rock Nine) while Arkansas governor Orval Faubus vacillated between alliances with the state’s white moderates and strict segregationists.
Bates was in frequent contact with NAACP chief counsel Thurgood Marshall and NAACP executive director Roy Wilkins to discuss strategy. She was personally threatened by extremists; on August 22, rocks were thrown through the windows of her home. On September 2, Faubus ordered the Arkansas National Guard to prevent the Little Rock Nine from entering the school. Bates accompanied the nine students as they walked to the school entrance and were turned back by the Guardsmen. Over the next few weeks, Bates provided assistance to the students, meeting with them every afternoon and speaking on their behalf to the press.
On September 25, 1957, President Dwight D. Eisenhower federalized the National Guard and ordered its troops to allow the Little Rock Nine to enroll in school, a major landmark in the civil rights struggle. In retaliation, Little Rock authorities passed an ordinance on October 2 requiring the NAACP to release its financial and membership records. When Bates refused, she was convicted of violating a local ordinance. She appealed, and her conviction was unanimously reversed by the U.S. Supreme Court on February 23, 1960, in the case Bates v. City of Little Rock. The Supreme Court held that the First Amendment prohibited a state government from compelling the disclosure of a controversial organization’s membership through tax regulations.
In 1962, Bates moved to New York City. She and L. C. briefly divorced but remarried after six months. In tribute to her civil rights work, Bates was the only woman to speak at the famous March on Washington on August 28, 1963. She also wrote a memoir of her experiences during the Little Rock Nine integration saga, and returned to Arkansas to continue her advocacy for the African American community. Bates died in Little Rock on November 4, 1999.
Significance
Bates was a crusading journalist whose newspaper courageously reported police abuse against African Americans and the exploitation of African American women. She also became one of the first female branch leaders of the NAACP. Her confluence of roles made her well suited to mentor the Little Rock Nine and represent them to the press, which she did with charisma and insight. Her record afterward was more eccentric, but she must be counted among the leading female figures of the Civil Rights movement.
Bibliography
Bates, Daisy Lee. The Long Shadow of Little Rock: A Memoir. 1962. Reprint. Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 1986. Bates’s memoir, originally published in 1962, focuses on the events surrounding the integration of Little Rock Central High School.
Gore, Dayo, Jeanne Theoharis, and Komozi Woodard, eds. Want to Start a Revolution? Radical Women in the Black Freedom Struggle. New York: New York University Press, 2009. Essays on significant women in the Civil Rights movement, including Bates.
Lerner, Gertrude, ed. Black Women in White America: A Documentary History. New York: Vintage, 1992. Contains rare sources documenting various aspects of African American life in the nation’s history. Includes two lengthy excerpts from Bates’s biography, one describing her first encounter with racism at age seven, and another the ordeal suffered by the Little Rock Nine.
McGuire, Danielle. At the Dark End of the Street. New York: Alfred Knopf, 2010. Describes Bates’s courageous efforts in using her newspaper to obtain justice for African American women assaulted by white men.
Stockley, Grif. Daisy Bates: Civil Rights Crusader from Arkansas. Jackson: University of Mississippi Press, 2005. A meticulously researched biography that honestly assesses both the positive and eccentric aspects of Bates’s legacy.