Our Forgotten Mother: Daisy Bates and Her School Integration Campaign

Abstract

ABSTRACT This manuscript seeks to recover and properly recognize the public relations efforts of social justice crusader Daisy Gatson Bates (1914–99), the co-owner of the Arkansas State Press and a state-level NAACP organizer, during the early years of the civil rights movement. The purpose of this study is to intervene in the “Great (White) Man’s” account of public relations history by documenting the public relations tactics that Daisy Bates implemented in her advocacy campaign for school integration, analyzing the motivations behind her deployment of the tactics, and evaluating the successes and failures of her strategies. To engage in that endeavor, we analyzed available archival sources, including correspondence between Bates and the NAACP housed at the University of Arkansas and the Library of Congress. We also examined other primary sources, such as official records of the Associated Press, published memoirs of Bates and Melba Pattillo Beals, published editorials in the local Arkansas State Press, and newspaper coverage in White mainstream national news outlets and the Black press, including circulation leaders such as the New York Times and Chicago Defender.