Women & the Civil Rights Movement

L. C. & Daisy Bates serve dinner to the "Little Rock Nine"
Photograph courtesy of the Arkansas History Commission

Throughout most of Arkansas's history, black women were excluded from participating in organizations founded by white women. Many black women confined their activities to church work, but some responded to their exclusion from white women's clubs by forming their own black clubs. Sometimes they achieved leadership positions in organizations that were not solely organized by and for women. Daisy Bates, for example, became a Civil Rights leader in Arkansas through her involvement with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the attempt to integrate Central High School in Little Rock in 1957. Daisy Gaston Bates was born in Huttig, a sawmill town in eastern Arkansas. She married L.C. Bates, and together they started the State Press, a black newspaper in Little Rock.

Daisy Bates became the President of the Arkansas chapter of the NAACP and was chiefly responsible for guiding the nine Little Rock High School students who first integrated Central High School. Mrs. Bates became internationally known for her efforts.

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