Daisy Bates: The engagement of a woman into the Civil Rights Movement

Résumé du document

Daisy Bates was a woman who decided to not submit to the white violence that black people were facing in the South. She is an interesting case because of her evolution from hatred to activism.
Scholars do not usually stress the role that Daisy Bates played within the Civil Rights movement –except when relating the Little Rock crisis- although she was a pillar of this movement and that is what I will discuss. I am interested in how this black woman became a symbol of a generation, a figure of strength and persuasion, a figure of activism and determination.
Indeed, “as a central participant in the 1957 Little Rock school integration crisis and head of the Arkansas State Conference of branches of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), Bates became one of the earliest women activists in the movement to gain national recognition”. I choose to focus on a wider definition of leadership which was given by Victoria Gray that states “what defines a leader is not [necessarily] his or her position in terms of titles or recognition by the state, public, or international community but the ability to influence others”.
Besides, as Belinda Robnett argued “for most women, the ladder up to a position of formal leadership and power within a movement organization did not exist”. The Bates's case is an excellent example of an “exception”. She was one of the earliest women to gain legitimacy in the Civil Rights movement as a leader. Thus, as opposed to what wrote Payne that “men len and women organized” this perspective could not be correct. Indeed, Barnett showed that black woman in the Civil Rights movement they organized but that this “organization is an important aspect of leadership”.
Therefore, it is with all those paths that I will try to show that her activism was shaped by her childhood and that the gender perspective is important to bear in mind reading this analysis.

Extraits

[...] After that, she decided to leave Little Rock and to concentrate upon national appearances, writing and promoting her memoirs. She worked for the Democratic National Committee and in President Lyndon Johnson's Great Society poverty programs in Washington D.C. In 1968, she moved to the rural black community in Mitchellville where she developed a self-help program aiming at improving the life conditions of the inhabitants. Even if Bates decided to leave Little Rock, she stayed a vivid memory of strong activism and a figure of leadership that several people tried to become. [...]

[...] She covered the story of his murder to open the eyes of black people and make them protest against this meaningless violence. The newspaper had an important impact on black groups and intended to give them the motivation to take action. As a result of the story, “male black leaders were forced to investigate the incident through a Negro Citizens' Committee instead of being complacent”. She continued to cover every story that was related to any white violence against blacks. [...]

[...] The origins and legacies of the Central High Crisis, The University of Arkansas Press, Fayetteville: 2007 Robnett Belinda, How long? How long? African-American women in the struggle of Civil Rights Towns, W. Stuart, We want our freedom”. Rhetoric of the Civil Rights movement, Praeger, London: 2002 Wexler Sanford, An eyewitness History: the Civil Rights movement, Facts on file, inc: 1999 Wilkinson, Doris Yvonne. Black Revolt: Strategies of Protest. Berkeley: McCutchan Publishing Corporation: 1969. [...]

[...] The same year, she became the co-chair president of the State Conference's Committee of the movement. In 1948, when her friend William Harold Flowers was elected President of the Arkansas State Conference of NAACP branches, she used the opportunity to “attack the lethargy of male leaders in the Little Rock NAACP”. In doing so, she hoped to create her own sphere of influence in a parallel group “Pulaski County Chapter of the NAACP”. She hoped to give new life to black activism in Arkansas criticizing the old leader Reverend Taylor and “provide a new dynamism for the organization”. [...]

[...] This is merely what Bates symbolized: a new approach of the Black struggle. Some black detractors argued that her leadership was way more too aggressive and this is surely why she never became as famous as other male leader even she was as important as they were. She faced several condemnations and was finally arrested by the state authorities for refusing to give the NAACP membership lists. In 1959, the State Press was forced to close as the advertisers retired their supports because of the segregationist campaign against Bates. [...]