You likely have seen some of these images from the Little Rock School Integration efforts in 1957. The person you don’t see in these photos is Daisy Gatson Bates who helped the Little Rock Nine become the first to attend the all-white Central High School in Little Rock.
The first 9 African Americans arrived on September 4th. They were met by a group of angry whites. Governor Orval Faubus opposed integration and he originally responded by sending the Arkansas National Guard to prevent the students from entering the school. Despite the animosity, the students continued.
Daisy Bates’ home served as the headquarters for the battle for integration. She served as a personal advocate and supporter of the students. On September 24, 1957, the nine students left her home to attend their first day of school. As they faced harassment and intimidation, Bates continued to support them. Daisy Bates is the unsung hero of this moment in the Civil Rights Movement and is remembered today for Black History Month.
Daisy Bates was born in Huttig, Arkansas in 1914 and raised in a foster home because when she was three years old, her mother was killed by some white men. Her biological mother’s death had an emotional and mental impact on her. The violent and untimely death forced Bates to confront racism at an early age and pushed her to dedicate her life to ending racial injustice.
When she was fifteen, she met her future husband and began traveling with him throughout the South. The couple settled in Little Rock, Arkansas, and started their newspaper. The Arkansas Weekly was one of the only African American newspapers solely dedicated to the Civil Rights Movement. The paper was circulated statewide. Bates not only worked as an editor but also regularly contributed articles.
Bates also worked with local Civil Rights organizations. For many years, she served as the President of the Arkansas chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). Her work with the NAACP not only transformed the Civil Rights Movement but also made Bates a household name.
When the Supreme Court decision of Brown vs. Board of Education ruled that segregation was illegal, the Black community looked to Daisy Bates for leadership and for a strategy for how Black students could effectively and safely integrate the Little Rock School District.
The plan for desegregating the schools of Little Rock was to be implemented in three phases, starting first with the senior and junior high schools, and then only after the successful integration of senior and junior schools would the elementary schools be integrated. After two years and still no progress, a lawsuit was filed against the Little Rock School District in 1956. The court ordered the school board to integrate the schools as of September 1957.
She organized the Little Rock Nine. Bates selected nine students to integrate Central High School in Little Rock in 1957. The students' attempts to enroll provoked a confrontation with Governor Orval Faubus, who called out the National Guard to prevent their entry. The guard only let the white students pass the school gate. Eight students out of the nine were asked to go back home. One student, Elizabeth Eckford, didn't receive the message from Daisy Bates the previous night and was met by a white mob outside the school as she tried to find the other eight students that morning. The mob threatened to kill the black students.
Bates used her organizational skills to plan a way for the nine students to get into Central High. She planned for ministers to escort the children into the school, two in front of the children and two behind. She thought that not only would they help protect the children physically but having ministers accompany them would "serve as powerful symbols against the bulwark of segregation".
Due to the pandemonium at Central High School, Superintendent Virgil Blossom dismissed the school on that first day of desegregation, and the crowds dispersed. U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower intervened by federalizing the Arkansas National Guard and dispatching the 101st Airborne Division to Little Rock to ensure that the court orders were enforced. The troops maintained order and desegregation proceeded.
However, the forces of segregation were not yet defeated. The following school year, the school district closed its buildings for a whole school year. Students, both Black and white, lost a full year of schooling. It is an illustration of the cost of racism to everyone, regardless of race. In Arkansas, it was called “The Lost Year.”
During the year 1957, as Central High School was being integrated, Bates’ house also was an official drop-off and pick-up place for the Little Rock Nine before and after school, every day. Because her house was an official meeting place, it became a center for violence and was often damaged by segregation supporters.
Additionally, the Little Rock City Council instructed the Little Rock police chief to arrest Bates and other NAACP figures; she and the local branch president surrendered voluntarily. They were charged with failing to provide information about NAACP members for the public record, in violation of a city ordinance. Though Bates was charged a fine by the judge, the NAACP lawyers appealed and eventually won a reversal in the United States Supreme Court.
In an interview with Bates, Daisy Bates said the most important contribution she made during the Little Rock crisis was:
“the very fact that the kids went in Central; they got in ... And they remained there for the full year. And that opened a lot of doors that had been closed to Negroes, because this was the first time that this kind of revolution had succeeded without a doubt. And none of the children were really hurt physically.”
Martin Luther King Jr. sent a telegram to Bates in September 1957 regarding the Central High School and Little Rock Nine crisis. King's purpose was to encourage her to "adhere rigorously to a way of non-violence", despite being "terrorized, stoned, and threatened by ruthless mobs". He assured her, "World opinion is with you. The moral conscience of millions of white Americans is with you." King followed up the telegram with a visit to Little Rock where he was a guest of the Bates’.
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 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 that was responsible for new sewer systems, paved streets, a water system, and a community center.
When her husband, died in 1980 Bates also earned the Honorary Doctor of Laws degree, which was awarded by the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville. But Little Rock paid her the ultimate tribute by opening Daisy Bates Elementary School and by making the third Monday in February both George Washington's Birthday and Daisy Gatson Bates Day an official state holiday.
Bates died following a series of strokes, in Little Rock on November 4, 1999, a week before her 85th birthday. She was a tireless and fearless leader during the Civil Rights Movement, but also an advocate and supporter of the poor and worked on their behalf her whole life. Daisy Bates is remembered as a formidable force in one of the biggest battles of school integration in the United States.
Here is a five-minute video with more information about Daisy Bates and the Little Rock Nine: