This level of dedication
That’s a hugely important thing she did, but not all by a long shot! She was also an author, activist, and Black leader in Arkansas; she served as the president of the Arkansas chapter of the NAACP and even worked in the LBJ administration. In fact, Arkansas even has a Daisy Bates day - which was yesterday!
She and her husband also started the Arkansas State Press, a paper that highlighted civil rights news, way back in 1941, and it ran until a boycott by whites offended by the paper’s pro-integration stance shut it down in 1959. And when the Little Rock Nine needed a mentor and advisor, Bates was chosen - she not only walked them to school, she was the one who got them in in the first place:
Bates used her organizational skills to plan a way for the nine students to get into Central High. She planned for ministers to escort the children into the school, two in front of the children and two behind. She thought that not only would they help protect the children physically but having ministers accompany them would “serve as powerful symbols against the bulwark of segregation.” Bates continued with her task of helping the nine enroll in school. She spoke with their parents several times throughout the day to make sure they knew what was going on. She joined the parent-teacher organization, even though she did not have a student enrolled in school. She was persistent and realized that she needed to dominate the situation in order to succeed. (wiki)
She was arrested at one point, and her house was vandalized frequently, but she still considered the Little Rock Nine one of her greatest achievements. And she did plenty after that; she wrote a memoir which won the American Book Award, served on a poverty initiative under President Johnson, and in her 60s when most people would be thinking toward retirement, she moved to a small town in AK and worked on infrastructure initiatives. She died at aged 84 as she lived: a total BAMF.
Happy black history month
