Daisy Bates and the Little Rock School Crisis: Forging the Way
The August23, 1963 March on Washington was a watershed event. For the first time in our nation's history, Black Americans collectively presented their grievances to a world that had been largely silent toward their battles for freedom. But there was something peculiar about this great moment in American history: Black women were virtually barred from participation, among them Rosa Parks, Diane Nash Revel, Gloria Richardson, and Daisy Bates. "The committee scheduled no female speakers during the entire three-hour program" (Branch, 1988, p. 880). Anna Arnold Hedgeman, author of The TrumphetSounds, recalls that "Mrs. Daisy Bates was asked to say a few words" (quoted in Giddings, 1984, p. 314). Thus the rhetorical space accorded Bates-civil rights activist, journalist, and lecturer-clearly did not reflect the essence of her achievements in the civil rights movement, especially in the South. Having successfully led the integration of Arkansas' Little Rock Central High School in 1957, Bates should have been a premier performer at the March on Washington when Martin Luther King, Jr. articulated and crystallized the Black movement toward justice; instead, she was relegated to the background. Bates spoke out at a time when women were supposed to be seen and not heard. Indeed, she was a key factor in shaping our social and educational history at a moment of constitutional crisis: the