Daisy Lee Gatson Bates
1207 West 28th Street, Little Rock, Arkansas, United States
Daisy Bates House
Baltimore, Maryland, US
A logo for National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.
Daisy Bates with Little Rock Nine
(Daisy Bates’s memoir, originally published in 1962, chron...)
Daisy Bates’s memoir, originally published in 1962, chronicles the moral and physical courage of one who stood at the center of the tumultuous events surrounding the racial integration of central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, during 1957–1958.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00PALUWMU/?tag=2022091-20
1962
Daisy Lee Gatson Bates was born on November 11, 1914, in Huttig, Arkansas, United States. She was the daughter of Hezakiah Gatson and Millie Riley. After the murder of her mother, Daisy was handed off to Gatson's close friends, Orlee Smith, a World War I veteran, and Susie Smith. Daisy never saw her biological father after that.
As a child Bates attended Huttig's segregated public schools.
In 1984, the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville awarded Daisy Bates an honorary Doctor of Laws degree.
When Daisy was fifteen, she met her future husband and began travelling with him throughout the South. The couple settled in Little Rock, Arkansas and started their own weekly statewide newspaper, the Arkansas State Press. The first issue appeared on May 9, 1941. The paper became an avid voice for civil rights even before a nationally recognized movement had emerged. Daisy Bates was later recognized as co-publisher of the paper.
In 1952, Daisy Bates became the Arkansas branch president of the NAACP (The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) at the age of 38. In 1954, when the Supreme Court's desegregation rulings were violated, Daisy Bates and others worked to figure out how to integrate the Little Rock Schools. As the leader of NAACP branch in Arkansas, Bates guided and advised the nine students, known as the Little Rock Nine, when they attempted to enroll in 1957 at Little Rock Central High School, a previously all-white institution.
Daisy Bates' house served as a haven for The Little Rock Nine and later became a National Historic Landmark. The students' attempts to enroll provoked a confrontation with Governor Orval Faubus, who called out the National Guard to prevent their entry. The Little Rock City Council instructed the Little Rock police chief to arrest Bates and other NAACP figures. Though Bates was charged a fine by the judge, the NAACP lawyers appealed and eventually won a reversal in the United States Supreme Court.
The Bates' involvement in the Little Rock Crisis resulted in the loss of advertising revenue to their newspaper, and it was forced to close in 1959. In 1960, Daisy Bates moved to New York City and wrote her memoir, The Long Shadow of Little Rock, which won a 1988 National Book Award. Bates then moved to Washington, D.C., and worked for the Democratic National Committee. She also served in the administration of U.S. President Lyndon Baines Johnson working on anti-poverty programs. In 1965, she suffered a stroke and returned to Little Rock. In 1968 she moved to the rural black community of Mitchellville in Desha County, eastern Arkansas. She concentrated on improving the lives of her neighbors by establishing a self-help program which was responsible for new sewer systems, paved streets, a water system, and a community center.
After her husband's death in 1980 Daisy Bates started the State Press newspaper again in 1984, as a part-owner with two partners. She sold the newspaper in 1987, but continued to act as a consultant.
Daisy Bates was known as an American civil rights activist who gained national and international recognition for her courage and persistence during the desegregation of Central High School when Governor Orval Faubus ordered members of the Arkansas National Guard to prevent the entry of black students.
She wrote her memoir, “The Long Shadow of Little Rock,” which won a National Book Award when it was re-published later in 1988.
(Daisy Bates’s memoir, originally published in 1962, chron...)
1962Quotations: "No man or woman who tries to pursue an ideal in his or her own way is without enemies".
Daisy was 17 when she started dating Lucius Christopher Bates, an insurance salesman who had also worked on newspapers in the South and West. Lucius divorced his first wife in 1941 before moving to Little Rock and starting the Arkansas State Press. Daisy and L.C. Bates married on March 4, 1942. The couple had no сhildren.
Hezakiah Gatson worked as lumber grader in a local mill.
Orlee Smith was a World War I veteran.
Lucius Bates was an African-American civil rights activist and the husband of Daisy Bates.
