Keishuna's blog: 2016

Daisy Bates

Born: November 11, 1914

Died: November 4, 1999

Unsung Heroes: One who has created positive change in history by improving the lives of others and has yet to be recognized. The individual’s impact must have stood the test of time.

I chose Daisy Bates because she's very powerful and fought for her rights. She was an American civil rights activist, publisher, journalist, and lecturer who played a leading role in the Little Rock Integration Crisis of 1957. Bates played a major role in the fight in segregation. In 1957, she helped nine African American students to become the first to attend all-white Central High School in Little Rock, who became known as the Little Rock Nine.The group first tried to go to the school on September 4 but was quickly turned down. As a teenager, Bates met Lucious Christopher “L.C.” Bates, an insurance agent and an experienced journalist.

The couple married in the early 1940s and moved to Little Rock, Arkansas. Together they operated the Arkansas State Press, a weekly African-American newspaper. The paper championed civil rights, and Bates joined in the civil rights movement. She became the president of Arkansas chapter of the National Association for Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1952. Her house became the headquarters for the battle to integrate Central High School and she served as a personal advocate and supporter to the students. The first day of school was on September 25, 1957.

Bates also received numerous threats, but this would not stop her from her work. The newspaper she and her husband worked on was closed in 1959 because of low adverting revenue. Three years later, her account of the school integration battle was published as The Long Shadow of Little Rock. For a few years, she moved to Washington, D.C., to work for the Democratic National Committee and on antipoverty projects for the Lyndon B. Johnson’s administration.