Short Talks: Arkansas Icon, Civil Rights Legend

Matt McGowan: Welcome to Short Talks from The Hill, a research and economic development podcast of the University of Arkansas. My name is Matt McGowan. In 2019, Arkansas lawmakers decided to replace the two statues representing the state at the US Capitol. Rather than obscure figures for more than 100 years ago. Legislators chose two people who symbolize a very different Arkansas, one that is more contemporary and diverse. Civil rights advocate Daisy Bates statue was unveiled in May. And country music legend Johnny Cash unveiled in September. In honor of this event, Short Talks from the Hill features two researchers discussing Bates and Cash. Last month, English professor Bob Cochran talked about the life and career of Johnny Cash, and this month, history professor Mike Pierce will tell us about Daisy Bates. Pierce is an associate professor of history. He focuses on modern U.S. history, labor, race, the civil rights movement, and Arkansas history. One of his current projects examines how an coalition of labor and civil rights groups brought New Deal and Great Society style liberalism to Arkansas in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and why younger politicians, including Bill Clinton, rejected this type of liberalism. Pierce directs the University of Arkansas Humanities Center’s Nelson Hackett Project and serves as associate editor of the Arkansas Historical Quarterly. Welcome, Mike, and thanks for being here.

Mike Pierce: Thanks for having me.

MM: I think most people, you know, most people recognize her name as an important Arkansan, but they may not know the full breadth of her life and her work. So can you tell us who Daisy Bates was and why she is an important person in Arkansas history?

MP: Yeah. Daisy Bates is an African-American woman who grew up in South Arkansas, down in Union County, and by the 1940s, she had become, along with her husband, L.C. Bates, the most militant civil rights activists in the state. They owned a newspaper, the Arkansas State Press, and they used that for a new form of black activism. The Bates says, were much different than the black leaders who came before them. The black leaders who came before them had learned, out of necessity, to accommodate Jim Crow disfranchisement. And they advanced the black community by negotiating with the white leadership. They didn’t rock the boat. They worked within the system. And, you know, in many ways for the 1920s and the 30s, that’s the only thing they could do. Coming after the Elayne riots, you know, anything else would be dangerous. But L.C. Bates and Daisy Bates, by the 1940s had grown dissatisfied with that. And instead of accommodating Jim Crow and helping African Americans by negotiating with white leaders L.C. Bates and Daisy Bates wanted to tear down Jim Crow. They wanted to make Arkansas a better place to live. And for black folks, they wanted opportunities for education. They wanted voting rights. They wanted to be able to go into restaurants and department stores. They wanted the same rights as as white people. But perhaps more importantly, they were both also labor leaders. They understood that that, you know, black people were poor, not just because of racial discrimination, but because of economic exploitation. And they both understood that Jim Crow, that disfranchisement were weapons that the powerful used against workers, both black and white. And so they stood at this intersection of trying to advance civil rights, black rights and worker rights. You know, this is clearly seen with Arkansas State Press right after World War two. They were involved in a strike at the southern cotton oil mill in, little Rock. they actually get thrown in jail because their coverage of this strike is so radical. For them, the exploitation of African-Americans, the oppression of African-Americans was bound up with the exploitation of workers. And so with Daisy Bates and L.C. Bates, her husband. They were also from this sort of radical tradition. And this is what led them to, being the most confrontational of the civil rights activists in little Rock and in Arkansas. They did not want Jim Crow parks to be built. They wanted access to the best jobs for African-Americans. They wanted businesses and plantations regulated so that workers, both black and white, could support their families. But they also wanted integration not only of schools, but of churches, of public accommodations, of restaurant arts. And they, they would tell the most powerful people in the state exactly what they wanted and why they were not playing around, acting like, you know, everything was fine. What has happened is that Daisy Bates is most famous for for one event or which is the integration of Central High School.

MM: I was going to say that that sets her up as so much more than that. And I think a lot of us have the impression that that was the totality of her was not at all. But let it… Tell us about her role in the little Rock Nine.

MP: Well, you know, in fact, it’s a much longer history of working for the integration of schools. Edith Irby, the first woman who attended, medical school at the University of Arkansas, College of Medicine, in 1949. she basically lived with Bates. They gave her the money to do it, and other people did, too. And so she was a keen proponent of the integration of public education. And so when the Brown versus Board of Education decision was made in 1954, she saw that as an opportunity to push for the integration of schools not only in little Rock but around the state. And by this time she was president of the, NAACP in Arkansas, the State Council of Branches, and in little Rock. What happens? I don’t know if everyone knows this. Little Rock school board right after Brown decision. So yep, we’re going to integrate. And they came up with a plan, but it was included a building, a plan, a building of new high schools. And it required two new high schools to be built. And that delayed it. And that delay meant that segregationists could mobilize. And segregationists in little Rock mobilized, led by the business community. They did not want, well, they did not want their kids going to school with black kids. And they mobilized. And at every point, Daisy Bates, L.C. Bates confronted them. they push back. They take the little Rock school board to court.

MM: Editorialize in the paper.

MP: They actually bring in Thurgood Marshall and the NAACP Legal Defense Fund in 1956. and they say Little Rock’s not moving fast enough. And the judge in the case, a guy named John Elvis Miller from Fort Smith, what he says is, yeah, they’re kind of moving. Okay. But they’ve promised next year in 1957, so they’re going to have to do it. And that’s why everything blew up in 1957. And the little Rock school board, what it did in the summer of 1957 was tried to discourage every African American student in the central attendance zone to transfer to the all black high school. And so left with nine black students. And what Daisy Bates does is she becomes the protector of them. The spokesperson. She becomes the public face, fighting on the news, talking to national reporters. So these 14, 15 year old kids don’t have to. She’s the one who really made it happen. And when segregation is in Little Rock, and in 1958 and 1959, they shut down the schools. They shut down the high schools to avoid integration. And it was Daisy Bates who kept up the pressure. And it was Daisy Bates who, with Wiley Branton, convinces the federal court system to say enough is enough and leads to the integration of Central High School. This is just one aspect of this longer career, and after this she’s involved with registering people to vote voting rights. She is at the March on Washington with Martin Luther King, the famous I have a Dream speech. She represents the Negro Labor Congress at that. She goes to work for the political arm of the national AfL-CIO, and she says this is the most important work that you can be doing is to organize both African-American and working class whites to really make the system more just.

MM: So it’s interesting, I think that, perhaps she would have seen the little Rock Nine incident and her role in it as just another chapter in her life rather than the pinnacle of her of her work.

MP: Exactly. I mean, I mean, I that’s the best way to put it. She had a career as an activist from 1940 until her death in the late 90s. And she did not go to bed resting. She was just always, always advocating for the most marginalized of Arkansans. Or she spent a little time out of state, but really, the most marginalized of people, you know, and that’s one of the things why I think pairing her with Johnny Cash is really kind of important, because Johnny Cash also became an advocate for the most marginalized. And these two figures, both, Daisy Bates and Johnny Cash, represent this common, common person and therefore very appropriate to how Arkansans like to think of themselves.

MM: That’s wonderful. Mike, thanks a lot for coming in today and telling us about Daisy Bates. Thank you. Short Talks from the Hill is now available wherever you get your podcasts. For more information and additional podcasts, visit arkansasresearch.uark.edu, the home of science and research news at the University of Arkansas. Music for Short Talks from the Hill was written and performed by local musician Ben Harris. 

A version of this story also appeared in the University of Arkansas’ Arkansas Research publication.