The house was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on January 3, 2001. It is a private residence and is not open to the public. It is located at 1207 West 28th., in Little Rock. Bates is associated with the Daisy Bates House Little Rock. She received numerous awards for her social activism, including an honorary degree from the University of Arkansas. Bates restarted her and her husband’s newspaper, from 1984-1988.ĭaisy Lee Bates is remembered as a formidable force in one of the biggest battles of school integration in the United States. She spent most of her doing community programs until her husband died in 1980. In the mid-1960s, Bates returned to Little Rock. She also worked on antipoverty projects for the Lyndon B. There she worked for the Democratic National Committee. A few years later, she moved to Washington, D.C. In 1960, Bates published her account of the school integration as The Long Shadow of Little Rock. The newspaper Bates and her husband worked on was closed in 1959 because of low advertising revenue. As they faced harassment and intimidation, Bates continued to support them. On Septemthe nine students left her home to attend their first day of school. She served as a personal advocate and supporter to the students. Bates’ home served as the headquarters for the battle for integration. Despite the animosity, the students continued on. He responded by sending the Arkansas National Guard to prevent the students from entering the school. Governor Orval Faubus opposed integration. They were met with a group of angry whites. The first 9 African Americans arrived on September 4th. In 1957, Bates helped the Little Rock Nine become the first to attend the all-white Central High School in Little Rock. As the head of this branch, Bates played a crucial role with desegregation in Arkansas. Bates joined the civil rights movement and became the president of the Arkansas NAACP chapter in 1952. This was a weekly African American newspaper that supported civil rights. There the couple operated the Arkansas State Press. They married in the early 1940s and moved to Little Rock, Arkansas. Bates was an insurance agent and experienced journalist. Daisy May Bates (1863-1951), welfare worker among Aboriginals and anthropologist, was born on 16 October 1863 in Tipperary, Ireland, daughter of James. Bates met Lucious Christopher “L.C.” Bates as a teenager. Bates was raised by friends of the family. Her mother was sexually assaulted and murdered by three white men. For her amazing career in social activism, we celebrate her as an American hero.īates was born, Daisy Gaston, in Huttig, Arkansas on November 11, 1914. Through her newspaper, Bates documented the battle to end segregation in Arkansas. Speech at the March on Washington - Aug.Daisy Bates is an African American civil rights activist and newspaper publisher.Department of the Interior, August 17, 2018. National Park Service).” National Parks Service. She was posthumously awarded the Medal of Freedom in 1999. She restarted the Arkansas State Press in 1984 but sold it in 1988.īates died on November 4, 1999. In 1965, Bates returned to Arkansas and was active in community programs until the death of her husband in 1980. At the March on Washington in 1963, Bates was one of only a few women invited to sit on the stage during the program and the only woman allowed to speak. She worked for the Democratic National Committee and on antipoverty projects for President Lyndon B. After the 1954 Supreme Court ruling against segregated schools, Bates began working to get African American students enrolled at all-white schools, eventually organizing the group known as the Little Rock Nine, the nine students chosen to integrate Central High School in Little Rock in 1957.Īfter The Arkansas Weekly was forced to close in 1959 due to loss of advertising revenue stemming from the Bates' civil rights activism, Bates moved to New York City and then to Washington, D.C. Bates was elected president of the Arkansas chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in 1952. C.) Bates, started the weekly newspaper, the Arkansas State Press, in 1941, one of the only African American newspapers solely dedicated to the Civil Rights Movement. She and her husband, Lucious Christopher (L. Daisy Lee Gatson Bates was a civil rights activist and newspaper publisher who played a leading role in the Little Rock Integration Crisis of 1957.īates was born on November 11, 1914, in Huttig, Arkansas.