Civil rights pioneer: Daisy Bates‏

Daisy Bates was a pivotal civil rights activist and the guide, mentor, and advisor for the Little Rock Nine.  She was also the president of the state of Arkansas’s NAACP branch and helped her husband run a weekly newspaper, the Arkansas State Press, which chronicled the ongoing battle for civil rights in Arkansas during the 1950s. When the Supreme Court ruled that segregation among schools was no longer constitutional (in the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education court case), the state of Arkansas resisted the ruling.  Daisy Bates advocated for integration and helped identify the nine students who would be the first African-American students to attend Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas.

She mentored and nurtured the students during this difficult time, striving to protect them from mobs and vicious threats.  Throughout her life, she continued to fight for civil rights, working for the Democratic National Committee in Washington and incubating many community projects in Little Rock.  Her memoir, The Long Shadow of Little Rock:  A Memoir chronicles her experiences growing up and her involvement in the struggle for civil rights.