Nevertheless, the pandemonium at Central High School caused superintendent Virgil Blossom to dismiss school 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. 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.
A significant role of Daisy Bates during the Civil Rights Movement was the advocating and mentoring of the Little Rock Nine. Daisy Bates’ house became a National Historic Landmark because of her role during the desegregation of schools. Her house served as a haven for The Little Rock Nine. The planning of how desegregation would be carried out and the goals to implement were an important part of her role during the movement and specifically, the house was a way to help achieve advocacy for civil rights. Her 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.
“The perseverance of Mrs. Bates and the Little Rock Nine during these turbulent years sent a strong message throughout the South that desegregation worked and the tradition of racial segregation under “Jim Crow” would no longer be tolerated in the United https://www.glenerinpharmacy.com/buy-generic-cialis-online/ States of America.” [8]
In Little Rock, the Bateses 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. The first issue appeared on May 9, 1941. The Arkansas State Press was primarily concerned with advocacy journalism and was modeled off other African-American publications of the era, such as the Chicago Defender and The Crisis. Stories about civil rights often ran on the front page with the rest of the paper mainly filled with other stories that spotlighted achievements of black Arkansans. Pictures were also in abundance throughout the paper. The paper became an avid voice for civil rights even before a nationally recognized movement had emerged. Daisy Bates was later recognized as co-publisher of the paper.
As the former president of the Arkansas State Conference of the NAACP, Bates was involved deeply in desegregated events. Even though in 1954 the United States Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education made all the segregated schools illegal, the schools in Arkansas refused to enroll African American students. Bates and her husband tried to fight against the situation in their newspaper. The state press became a fervent supporter of the NAACP’s integrated public school events. The State Press editorialized,
“We feel that the proper approach would be for the leaders among the Negro race—not clabber mouths, Uncle Toms, or grinning appeasers to get together and counsel with the school heads.”
Concerning the policy of academic desegregation, The State press cultivated a spirit of action within the hearts of African American and white citizens. Opposite to gradual approach, this newspaper mainly wanted immediate reform in Arkansas’ educational system. The Arkansas State Press reported that the NAACP was the lead organizer in these protest events, and the newspaper also tended to enlarge national influence to let more people get involved in the educational events in Little Rock.
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. This boycott successfully cut off funding, except the money which came directly and through advertisements from the NAACP national office, and through ads from supporters throughout the country. Despite this the State Press was unable to maintain itself and the last issue was published on October 29, 1959.
In 1998, a spokeswoman for Bates stated that Bates had felt guilty for her failure to notify one of the young ladies, Elizabeth Eckford, that they were delaying the entrance into Central High School. The family of the child had no telephone, and the father did not return from work until 3 a.m. Elizabeth didn’t know that she needed her parents to accompany her, and she also didn’t know that she needed to gather with other black students in that morning. As a result, Elizabeth met a mob by herself, when a kind reporter, Grace Lorch, took her out of the mob and guided her way to the bus station. The previous night, Bates fell asleep before she was able to deliver the message to the family, and the girl attempted to attend her first day alone at the segregated school. Bates not only wanted that the black students would accept the same level education with white students, but also wanted to make it her job for all races to have the same quality of education.
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, NAACP lawyers appealed and eventually won a reversal in the United States Supreme Court. In a similar case, the high court held that the state of Alabama could not compel the NAACP to turn over its membership list to state officials.
Martin Luther King Jr. sent a telegram on September 1957 regarding the Central High School and Little Rock Nine crisis. King’s purpose was to encourage Bates 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 was a guest of the Bates’ in May 1958 when he spoke at the Arkansas AM&N College commencement. Soon after the commencement, King asked Daisy Bates to be the Women’s Day speaker at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church later that year in October. The same year that she was elected to be a speaker at the Baptist church, she was also elected to the executive committee of King’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC).
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. This Crisis showed the influence of the local organizations, and Bates’ action worked because the government started to have a reaction towards the organization like NAACP. 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 B. Johnson working on anti-poverty programs. In 1965, she suffered a stroke and returned to Little Rock.
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 which was responsible for new sewer systems, paved streets, a water system, and community center.
Bates revived the Arkansas State Press in 1984 after L. C. Bates, her husband, died in 1980. In the same year, Bates also earned the Honoraray Doctor of Laws degree, which was awarded by the University of Arkansas Fayetteville. In 1986 the University of Arkansas Press republished The Long Shadow of Little Rock, which became the first reprinted edition ever to earn an American Book Award. The former First lady Eleanor Roosevelt wrote the introduction for Bate’s autobiography. The following year she sold the newspaper, but continued to act as a consultant. Little Rock paid perhaps the ultimate tribute, not only to Bates but to the new era she helped initiate, by opening the Daisy Bates Elementary School and by making the third Monday in February George Washington’s Birthday and Daisy Gatson Bates Day an official state holiday.
Bates died in Little Rock on November 4, 1999.