Daisy Lee Gatson Bates (November 11, 1914 – November 4, 1999).
But, who was she? What was she?
American civil rights activist, publisher, and writer who played a leading role in the Little Rock Integration Crisis of 1957....
So?
Bates and her husband were important figures in the African American community in the capital city of Little Rock. They published a local black newspaper, the Arkansas State Press, which publicized violations of the Supreme Court's desegregation rulings. Bates guided and advised the nine students, known as the Little Rock Nine, when they attempted to enroll in 1957 at Little Rock Central High School, a previously all-white institution. The students' attempts to enroll provoked a confrontation with Governor Orval Faubus, who called out the National Guard to prevent their entry. White mobs met at the school and threatened to kill the black students; these mobs harassed not only activists but also northern journalists who came to cover the story.
Little Rock.
I remember Little Rock.
Orval Faubus.
Yeah, I remember that guy.
How come I don't remember Daisy Bates? She was really a big deal. Oh, she was only a woman:
felt the absence of comparable focus on outstanding women participants alongside men in the Movement. Dryden decided to call a conference of activists and scholars to address the omissions.
Editors Vicki Crawford, Jacqueline Rouse, and Barbara Woods make no claim of presenting a unified chronicle of women in the Civil Rights Movement, nor of providing treatment comprehensive enough to include all major figures. Daisy Bates, for instance, who led the school desegregation struggle in Little Rock, is not among the women treated in a full chapter. Nor is Diane Nash (Bevel) whose critical leadership in the Nashville Student Movement and the newly formed Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee has not yet received thorough attention.
One misses also Atlanta's Ruby Doris Smith (Robinson) who devoted the productive period of her short life (from age seventeen to her death at twenty-seven) to SNCC. And though Vicki Crawford in her excellent essay, "Beyond the Human Self: Grassroots Activists in the Mississippi Civil Rights Movement," provides an illuminating portrait of Mrs. Annie Devine and others—(three separate chapters are devoted to Fannie Lou Hamer)—the very breadth of her treatment made me long for a companion piece on the bold third member of the female triumvirate of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party: Victoria Gray Adams.
And, what about Diane Nash?
Nash's campaigns were among the most successful of the era. Her efforts included the first successful civil rights campaign to de-segregate lunch counters (Nashville); the Freedom riders, who de-segregated interstate travel; founding the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC); and the Selma Voting Rights Movement campaign, which resulted in African Americans getting the vote and political power throughout the South.
Or Ruby Doris Smith?
Ruby Doris Smith-Robinson worked with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) from its earliest days in 1960 until her death in October 1967. She served the organization as an activist in the field and as an administrator in the Atlanta central office. She eventually succeeded James Forman as SNCC's executive secretary and was the only woman ever to serve in this capacity. She was well respected by her SNCC colleagues and others within the movement for her work ethic and dedication to those around her. SNCC freedom singer Matthew Jones recalled, "You could feel her power in SNCC on a daily basis" (Jones 1989). Jack Minnis, director of SNCC's opposition research unit, insisted that people could not fool her. Minnis was convinced that she had a "100 percent effective shit detector" (Minnis 1990).
Victoria Gray Adams?
In 1964, Adams, a teacher, door-to-door saleswoman of cosmetics, and leader of voter education classes, decided to run against Senator John Stennis, the Mississippi Democrat who at the time had been in the Senate for 16 years. She announced that she and others from the tiny Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, of which she was a founding member, along with Fannie Lou Hamer and Annie Devine, would challenge the power of white segregationist politicians like Stennis. The time had come, she said, to pay attention “to the Negro in Mississippi, who had not even had the leavings from the American political table.”
During the Freedom Summer of 1964, Adams helped open the Freedom Schoolsthat pushed for civil rights in Mississippi. She went to the 1964 Democratic National Convention in Atlantic City, New Jersey. The Mississippi Democratic Party had withdrawn support for President Lyndon Johnson because of Johnson's work to pass the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and sent an all-white delegation to the convention. The three women fought to be seated among the delegation, but were unsuccessful. The incident, however, led to racial integration reforms within the party.
Many thanks to Wikipedia.