Daisy Bates: Civil Rights Crusader from Arkansas (Margaret Walker Alexander Series in African American Studies)

351 Pages·2005·1.35 MB·English

by  Grif Stockley

Daisy Bates
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D B
AISY ATES
Civil Rights Crusader from Arkansas
Grif Stockley
UNIVERSITY PRESS OF MISSISSIPPI • JACKSON
Margaret Walker Alexander Series in African American Studies
www.upress.state.ms.us
The University Press of Mississippi is a member of the Association of
American University Presses.
Copyright © 2005 by University Press of Mississippi
All rights reserved
Manufactured in the United States of America
First edition 2005
(cid:1)
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Stockley, Grif.
Daisy Bates : civil rights crusader from Arkansas / Grif Stockley.—1st ed.
p. cm. (Margaret Walker Alexander series in African American
studies)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 1-57806-801-0 (cloth : alk. paper)
1. Bates, Daisy. 2. African American women civil rights workers—
Arkansas—Little Rock—Biography. 3. African Americans—Arkansas—
Little Rock—Biography. 4. Civil rights workers—Arkansas—Little
Rock—Biography. 5. Little Rock (Ark.)—Biography. 6. Civil rights
movements—Arkansas—Little Rock—History. 7. School integration—
Arkansas—Little Rock—History. 8. Central High School (Little Rock,
Ark.) 9. Little Rock (Ark.)—Race relations. 10. Arkansas—Race
relations. I. Title.
F419.L7S76 2005
323'.092—dc22 2005009959
British Library Cataloging-in-Publication Data available
To my granddaughter, Rachel Susan Tulk
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CONTENTS
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction 3
1. A Little Girl from Huttig 13
2. A Much Older Man 22
3. A Newspaper All Their Own 32
4. Two for the Price of One 43
5. An Unwavering Commitment 53
6. The Bombshell of Brown v. Board of Education 65
7. A Foot in the Schoolhouse Door 83
8. Two Steps Back 93
9. Front and Center 112
10. Who Is That Woman in Little Rock? 131
11. A Battle Every Day 148
12. Woman of the Year 160
13. Holding the Line 173
14. Coping with Defeat 191
15. The New York Years 210
16. Going in Different Directions 233
17. The Long Shadow of Little Rock 247
18. Mitchellville—Self-Help or Monument? 259
19. Fighting Over a Legend 280
Notes 298
Index 335
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
During the research phase of this project, Roy Reed commented
that his biography of Orval Faubus would have been a different
book if he had written it after Faubus’s death. I have no doubt his
point applies here as well. Daisy Bates died in 1999. Most of my inter-
views were conducted in 2002. Yet no biography, no matter how can-
did the interviewees, can reduce a human life to the contents of a
book. At the end, our lives remain a mystery, and perhaps that is why
history fascinates: it is always a work in progress, always subject to
revision as our perspective changes.
For the biographer or historian, one of the primary pleasures is the
encounter with all the people who make your book possible. Though
some will tell you that they are only doing their job in assisting you,
for many it is their passion, their life’s work. The only possible response
is gratitude and humility.
From the very beginning, Johanna Miller Lewis at the University
of Arkansas at Little Rock provided crucial assistance in ways too
numerous to mention, including a close reading of the manuscript.
I would also be remiss in not thanking her research assistant, Jessica
Hayes. Tom Dillard and Jeannie Whayne (both now at the University
of Arkansas in Fayetteville) read the manuscript and gave critical sup-
port. Cary Cox of the Butler Center for Arkansas Studies volunteered
to read an early version and caught numerous errors. Elizabeth
Jacoway, who has devoted decades to researching the era and events of
the 1957 crisis, generously provided assistance in a number of areas.
Her interview with Daisy Bates is indispensable to admirers and crit-
ics alike. Nor can I fail to mention the work and assistance of John A.
Kirk, whose book and thesis on black leadership in Little Rock
between 1940 and 1970 were invaluable, as evidenced by the number
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