Daisy Bates: Working for Racial Justice
Daisy Bates used her position as a newspaper owner and writer to highlight racial injustice.
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Daisy Bates (back row, second from right) with the “Little Rock Nine”— the nine students she helped as they enrolled in an all-white high school.
Did you know that March is Women’s History Month in the United States? All through history, many women have fought for the rights of others, even at times when women themselves had fewer rights than men. Daisy Bates was one of those women.
Daisy Bates was born in Huttig, Arkansas, in 1914. She experienced racism as a child, and as she grew up she became determined to work for justice and equality. In 1941, Bates married a journalist named L.C. Bates. (A journalist is a person who writes news stories.) The couple moved to Little Rock, Arkansas, and started a newspaper called the Arkansas State Press. The Arkansas State Press was dedicated to highlighting racial injustice in Arkansas.
Bates was heavily involved in the civil rights movement. In 1952, she became the president of the Arkansas chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), an organization that works for equal rights for Black Americans.
At the time, many public places in the South were segregated, meaning Black people were not allowed to be in the same places as white people. This began to change in the 1950s, thanks to the work of civil rights activists. In 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that public schools had to integrate, meaning they could no longer be segregated. But many schools, including those in Little Rock, made little or no effort to integrate.
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In this 1959 photo, Daisy Bates (standing) meets with high school students to plan a protest after the students were told they could not attend a “white” high school.
Bates decided to take matters into her own hands. She began taking Black children to schools that had been all white. When schools refused to let the Black students in, Bates would write about it in the Arkansas State Press so that the public knew the Supreme Court’s decision was not being respected.
In 1957, with support from the NAACP, Bates helped nine Black students enroll in the all-white Central High School in Little Rock and even arranged to walk them into the school. But when the group arrived for their first day, they were violently attacked and not permitted into the building. This happened day after day, until President Dwight D. Eisenhower ordered federal troops to protect the students.
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In this 1959 photo, Daisy Bates signs autographs for a group of admirers during a visit to Maryland.
Bates herself continued to experience threats and violence because of her civil rights work. In 1959, these issues forced Bates and her husband to stop printing the Arkansas State Press. But Bates continued to work for justice. In the 1960s, she moved to Washington, D.C. There, she worked for voting rights for Black Americans and supported President Lyndon Johnson’s efforts to reduce poverty.
Bates died in 1999.
