Women’s Corner
by Donna Schell*

Anniversaries mark important milestones in our national story and allow us, through the gift of time, to more fully appreciate the historical significance of the events and the individuals, whose heroic actions, the celebrations commemorate. September, marks the anniversary of the desegregation of Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas; this incident in our nation’s journey toward racial equality, provides an opportunity to showcase one of many extraordinary women who played a vital role in this historic event - Mrs. Daisy Bates. Bates guided, comforted and supported the Little Rock Nine in the midst of intense national turmoil and personal death threats.

Daisy Gatson Bates, a civil rights activist, clearly rose to the occasion of the times, not unlike her contemporaries, Rosa Parks and Jo Anne Robinson (Montgomery Bus Boycott) and therefore, appropriately, deserves a central place in any discussion of school integration in the era of Brown vs. the Board of Education. Mrs. Bates, a dignified, yet daring woman was unrelenting and tireless in her response to racial injustice throughout her life.  In her capacity as president of Arkansas’s chapter of the NAACP (elected in 1952) and in her feisty journalistic ventures with her husband, L.C. Bates, a co-publisher of the Arkansas State Press, she touched all her witnessed and subsequently benefited from her bold actions. Early recognition of the importance of her work in the civil rights movement resulted in Daisy Bates’ selection as the only woman to deliver a speech at the historic 1963 March on Washington. Her eloquent remarks followed those of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

            Local acknowledgement of her contributions toward eradicating racial discrimination is bestowed upon her today.  In Arkansas, a celebration of her birthday is paired with that of George Washington’s and both the street in front of Central High National Historic Site and a Little Rock elementary school bear her name.  Sadly, outside of Arkansas, she is probably not as well known.  Her home, 1207 W. 28th Street, named a national landmark, served as the operational base for the Little Rock Nine and their families as they struggled through the 1957-58 school year. Her reprinted memoir, The Long Shadow of Little Rock, won a National Book Award in 1986, despite its original publication date of 1962. Although forced to leave Arkansas due to the loss of her newspaper, she continued to serve the nation during the Johnson administration, working to end poverty in our nation.  She later returned to Arkansas where she died in 1999.

Please join me in highlighting the accomplishments of Daisy Bates in your classrooms this coming school year; only then will she receive the national status and appreciation she earned.

Lastly, many worthwhile instructional activities about the integration of Central High can be found on the Internet. Two sites you may wish to investigate include: Rethinking Schools Online at www.rethinkingschools.org and Teaching Tolerance at www.tolerance.org.