Daisy Bates, was a journalist and civil rights activist. She withstood economic, legal, and physical intimidation to champion racial equality, most notably in the integration of public schools in Little Rock, Arkansas. She was born Daisy Lee Gatson on November 11, 1914, in Huttih, Arkansas. Her mother, Millie Riley, was killed by three White men when she was an infant. Out of fear, her father, John Gatson, fled town and left his daughter in the care of friends, Orlee and Susie Smith. Daisy Gatson attended the local segregated schools in her youth.
Bates childhood included attendance in Huttig's segregated public schools, where she learned firsthand the poor conditions to which Black students were exposed. At the age of fifteen, she met her future husband Lucius Bates. After marrying, she moved with her husband to Little Rock in 1941, and decided to act on a dream of theirs, the ownership of a newspaper. They leased a printing plant that belonged to a church publication and inaugurated the Arkansas State Press, a weekly statewide newspaper. This was a weekly Black newspaper that supported civil rights.
Throughout its existence, the Arkansas State Press covered all social news happening within the state. It was an avid supporter of racial integration in schools and thoroughly publicized its support in its pages. Coverage of racially biased justice made them frequent targets of spurious arrests. In one instance, the Bates were charged with contempt of court for an article they published. In 1957, because of its strong position during the Little Rock Segregation Crisis, White advertisers held another boycott to punish the newspaper for supporting desegregation.
Bates joined the civil rights movement and became the president of the Arkansas NAACP chapter in 1952. As the head of this branch, Bates played a crucial role with desegregation in Arkansas. The story began in 1954 when the Supreme Court called for an end to segregated schools. The Arkansas State Press began clamoring for integration in Little Rock schools. Bates worked closely with the Black students who volunteered to desegregate Central High School in the fall of 1957. When the White superintendent announced he would only admit one student, Daisy Bates helped organize the Little Rock Nine.
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. The first 9 Blacks arrived on September 4th. They were met with a group of angry Whites, with verbally and physically abuse. Governor Orval Faubus opposed integration. He responded by sending the Arkansas National Guard to prevent the students from entering the school.
Daisy served as a personal advocate and supporter to the students. The students and their parents quickly came to rely on Bates, as a protector, spokeswoman, and problem-solver. The city’s White Citizens Council, formed to oppose integration, distributed handbills portraying her as a criminal because of the prior unjust detentions. The city council ordered her arrest for failing to provide detailed information about the NAACP branch’s membership and finances. She and her husband had to hire armed guards to protect their home.
As the harassment intensified, she went to the school and demanded that stronger measures be taken against white offenders. After President Eisenhower sent in the 101st Airborne, Bates had to personally travel to the Little Rock Nine’s homes in the middle of the night to let the families know they could come to school. The troops maintained order, and desegregation proceeded. In the 1958–59 school year, however, public schools in Little Rock were closed in another attempt to roll back desegregation. That period is known as "The Lost Year" in Arkansas.
She was named Woman of the Year by the National Council of Negro Women in 1957. Along with the Little Rock Nine, Bates received the Spingarn Medal, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) highest award, in 1958. In 1960, Bates published her account of the school integration as The Long Shadow of Little Rock. Bates later wrote about her struggles in a memoir entitled "The Long Shadow of Little Rock", published in 1962. The former First lady Eleanor Roosevelt wrote the introduction for Bates' autobiography.
At the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, Bates was one of only two women (Josephine Baker was the other) that spoke on that historic day. In 1968, she and her husband moved to Mitchellville, Arkansas. She became director of the Mitchellville Office of Equal Opportunity Self-Help Project. A few years later, she moved to Washington, D.C. There she worked for the Democratic National Committee. She also worked on antipoverty projects for the Lyndon B. Johnson’s administration.
Bates returned to Little Rock after the death of her husband in 1980 and revived the Arkansas State Press. Bates maintained her involvement in numerous community organizations and received numerous honors for her contribution to the integration of Little Rock’s schools. In 1984, she was awarded an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville and named an honorary member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority. In 1987 the state of Arkansas named the third Monday in February George Washington’s Birthday and Daisy Gatson Bates Day.