Black History Month: Daisy Bates

Daisy Bates (1914-1999) "The First Lady of Little Rock"

Daisy Bates was a pivotal civil rights activist and the guide, mentor, and advisor for the Little Rock Nine.  She was also the president of the state of Arkansas’s NAACP chapter and helped her husband run a weekly newspaper, the Arkansas State Press, which chronicled the ongoing battle for civil rights in Arkansas during the 1950s.

Daisy Bates and the Little Rock Nine

In the 1950’s, Arkansas was a moderate southern state that had been peacefully integrating for years. By 1956, state universities and city buses had been integrated in all of Arkansas. In 1957, public school desegregation began in Little Rock.The school board decided to begin gradual desegregation with older children, selecting nine black high school students (Carlotta Walls, Jefferson Thomas, Elizabeth Eckford, Thelma Mothershed, Melba Patillo, Ernest Green, Terrance Roberts, Gloria Ray, and Minnijean Brown) to transfer to the all-white Central High. Following easy bus integration in Little Rock, black leaders expected school integration to go smoothly. Members of the school board, who also recognized the need for integration, hoped for the best. “But we did, at that stage, have fears, and they were, I guess, just naturally important emotional fears,” recalls board member Harold Engstrom. “And so, we needed some help from the officials, the state officials, the county, the city officials, and primarily from Governor Faubus as to what he told the people, whether it was the law or not. 

Elizabeth Eckford Walks to School Alone

When the Supreme Court ruled that segregation among schools was no longer constitutional (in the 1954 Brown vs Board of Education case), the state of Arkansas resisted the ruling.  Daisy Bates advocated for integration and helped identify the nine students who would be the first African-American students to attend Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas.

She mentored and nurtured the students during this difficult time, striving to protect them from mobs and vicious threats.  Throughout her life, she continued to fight for civil rights, working for the Democratic National Committee in Washington and incubating many community projects in Little Rock.  Her memoir, The Long Shadow of Little Rock:  A Memoirchronicles her experiences growing up and her involvement in the struggle for civil rights.

On Friday, February 3 we’re producing an interactive screening of the documentary Daisy Bates: First Lady of Little Rock from Central High in Little Rock, Arkansas. Moderated by PBS NewsHour’s Hari Sreenivasan and featuring filmmaker Sharon La Cruise, the event will take place here Friday at 11:30 AM PT / 1:30 PM CT / 2:30 PM ET. Premiering on Independent Lens this Thursday, the film examines the life Daisy Bates — a complex, unconventional, and largely forgotten heroine of the civil rights movement who led the charge to desegregate the all-white Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas in 1957.
So We say thank you Daisy for been a voice that was not afraid to Speak... To Stand up for change.. to stand up for justice.. All of us here at Merick's Corner Salute you... So who will be next... check us out tomorrow.. remember you can follow Merick's Corner Radio Drama right here live on the Blog and you can follow the Journey of Merick on Facebook and Twitter just by looking up MerickF...