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Daisy Gatson Bates was a journalist and Civil Rights
activist who famously facilitated the 1957 integration
of public schools in Little Rock, Arkansas. Growing up
in southern Arkansas during the early 20th century,
Bates experienced first hand the poor conditions and
discrimination of the segregated school system. She
spent her entire adult life standing up to physical threats
and other forms of intimidation in order to champion
causes of racial equality.
In 1941, Daisy Gatson married L.C. Bates, and moved
with him to Little Rock where she helped him run a
weekly newspaper called The Arkansas State Press. The
newspaper focused on social and economic issues that
particularly affected the black residents of the state, and
often reported incidents of police brutality. Because the
Bates’ refused to censor the details of these brutalities,
many white businesses boycotted advertising in their
newspaper.
In 1952, Bates was elected President of the Arkansas Branch of the NAACP. In that role she
led the protest against the Little Rock School Board’s plan for gradual integration. In 1957,
after the school board announced plans to commence desegregation at Central High
School, Bates worked with the chosen nine African American students, guiding and advising
them as they made their attempts to enter the school. On September 25, President Dwight
Eisenhower sent 1,000 U.S. Army paratroopers to enforce the integration of the school, and
Bates and the students were escorted and finally able, after many failed attempts, to safely
enter the school.
In 1962, Bates published her autobiography, “The Long Shadow of Little Rock.” The following
year she was the only woman selected to speak at the 1963 March on Washington. She
went on to work for the Democratic National Committee’s voter education drive and for
President Lyndon Johnson’s anti-poverty programs. When Daisy Gatson Bates died in 1999,
more than 2,000 guests attended her memorial service in Little Rock, AR
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