Daisy Bates

Daisy Gatson Bates a native and lifelong resident of Arkansas, played a leading role in the integration of public schools in Little Rock in the 1950s. Bates also led the state’s branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and headed Arkansas’ only newspaper geared toward the interests of blacks.

A quality education

Bates, a fearless advocate for children who believed that all children should receive the same quality of education, stood toe-to-toe with the Arkansas governor who in 1957 vowed that “blood will run in the streets” if black students tried to enter a Little Rock high school.

But Bates demanded that Arkansas politicians and school officials uphold a 1954 Supreme Court ruling that segregated schools were illegal. She then selected and mentored the first nine African American students — known as the Little Rock Nine — to attend a city high school.

Bates’ home was the headquarters for activists in the battle to integrate schools, as students, parents and a young civil rights attorney named Thurgood Marshall frequently gathered there to plot strategy.

As determined as she was stylish, Bates’ strong will was evident during a federal court procedure to integrate schools when she refused to be intimidated by an attorney for the Little Rock school system who repeatedly referred to her by her first name only.

“You addressed me several times this morning by my first name,” Bates said. “That is something that is reserved for my intimate friends and my husband. You will refrain from calling me Daisy.”

On Sept. 4, 1957, the first day of classes, the Little Rock Nine were turned away by a hostile crowd and the National Guard were ordered by the governor. Three weeks later, the students were again met with resistance by white students and their parents. Although the black students were escorted to their classes, school administrators feared violence and had them removed.

Two days later, President Dwight D. Eisenhower ordered federal troops to provide protection for the students to attend classes.

“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,” Bates later said. Bates was one of only a handful of female civil rights activists at the time and the only woman asked to speak at the March on Washington in 1963.