Bates, Daisy, 1914-1999

Daisy Bates (November 11, 1914 – November 4, 1999) was an American civil rights activist, publisher, journalist, and lecturer who played a leading role in the Little Rock Integration Crisis of 1957.

Daisy Bates was born on November 11, 1914. She grew up in southern Arkansas in the small sawmill town of Huttig. Bates was born in a shotgun house to her biological mother and father, Hezakiah Gatson and Millie Riley. Hezakiah Gatson supported the family by working as a lumber grader in a local mill. After the murder of her mother, Daisy was handed off to Gatson's close friends, Orlee Smith, a World War I veteran, and Susie Smith. Daisy never saw her biological father after that.[1] In The Death of my Mother,[2] Bates recounted learning at eight years old, of her birth mother being first raped, then murdered, by three local white men. Her biological mother was then dropped into a millpond when Daisy was only a few months old.[3] Learning of her mother's death and knowing that nothing was ever done about it fueled her anger.[4] Her adoptive father, Orlee Smith, told her that the killers were never found due to the lack of devotion to the case from the police. This released a desire for vengeance inside Daisy