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Books by and about Daisy Bates
Long Shadow of Little Rock
(Daisy Bates,1998) /
Daisy Bates Civil Rights Crusader from Arkansas
(Grif Sockley, 2005)
The Power of One: Daisy Bates and the Little Rock Nine (Fradin,
2004) /
Young and Black in America
(Julius Lester,1972)
* * * *
* What It Means to Be Negro
By Daisy Bates (1914-1999)
I was born Daisy Lee Gatson in
the little sawmill town of Huttig, in southern Arkansas. The owner
of the mill ruled the town. Huttig might have been called a
sawmill plantation, for everyone worked for the mill, lived in
houses owned by the mill, and traded at the general store run by
the mill.
The hard red clay streets of the
town were mostly unnamed. Main Street, the widest and longest
street in town, and the muddiest after a rain, was the site of our
business square. It consisted of four one-story buildings which
housed a commissary and a meat market, a post office, an ice cream
parlor, and a movie house. Main Street also divided “White
Town” from “Negra Town.” However, the physical appearance of
the two areas provided a more definite means of distinction.
The Negro citizens of Huttig
were housed in rarely painted, drab red “shotgun” houses, so
named because one could stand in the front yard and look straight
through the front and back doors into the back yard. The Negro
community was also provided with two church buildings of the same
drab red exterior, although kept spotless inside by the Sisters of
the church, and a two-room schoolhouse equipped with a potbellied
stove that never quite succeeded in keeping it warm.
On the other side of Main Street
were white bungalows, white steepled churches and a spacious white
school with a big lawn. Although the relations between the Negro
and white were cordial, the tone of the community, as indicated by
outward appearances, was of the “Old South” tradition.
As I grew up in this town, I
knew I was a Negro, but I did not really understand what that
meant until I was seven years old. My parents, as do most Negro
parents, protected me as long as possible from the inevitable
insult and humiliation that is, in the South, a part of being
“colored.”
I was a proud and happy child--all
hair and legs, my cousin Easy B. used to say--and only child
although not blessed with the privileges of having my own way. One
afternoon, shortly after my seventh birthday, my mother called me
in from play.
“I’m not feeling well,”
she said. “You’ll have to go to the market to get meat for
dinner.”
I was thrilled with such an
important errand. I put on one of my prettiest dresses and my
mother brushed my hair. She gave me instructions to get a pound of
center-cut pork chops. I skipped happily all the way to the
market.
When I entered the market, there
where several white adults waiting to be served. When the butcher
had finished with them, I gave him my order. More white adults
entered. The butcher turned from me and took their orders. I was a
little annoyed but felt since they were grownups it was all right.
While he was waiting on the adults, a little white girl came in
and we talked while we waited.
The butcher finished with the
adults, looked down at us and asked, “What do you want, little
girl?” I smiled and said, “I told you before, a pound of
center-cut pork chops.” He snarled, “I’m not talking to
you,” and again asked the white girl what she wanted. She also
wanted a pound of center-cut pork chops.
“Please may I have my meat?”
I said, as the little girl left. The butcher took my dollar from
the counter reached into the showcase, got a handful of fat chops
and wrapped them up. Thrusting the package at me, he said,
“Niggers have to wait ‘til I wait on the white people. Now
take your meat and get out of here!” I ran all the way home
crying.
When I reached the house, my
mother asked what had happened. I started pulling her toward the
door, telling her what the butcher had said. I opened the meat and
showed it to her. “It’s fat, Mother. Let’s take it back.”
“Oh, Lord, I knew I
shouldn’t have sent her. Stop crying, now, the meat isn’t so
bad.”
“But it is, Why can’t we
take it back?”
“Go on out on the porch and
wait for Daddy.” As she turned from me, her eyes were filling
with tears.
When I saw Daddy approaching, I
ran to him, crying. He lifted me in his arms and smiled. “Now,
what’s wrong?’ When I told him, his smile faded.
“And if we don’t hurry, the
market will be closed,” I finished.
“We’ll talk about it after
dinner, sweetheart.” I could feel the muscles tighten as he
carried me into the house.
Dinner was distressingly silent.
Afterward my parents went into the bedroom and talked. My mother
came out and told me my father wanted to see me. Daddy sat there
looking at me for a long time. Several times, he tried to speak,
but the words just wouldn’t come. I stood there, looking at him
and wondering why he was acting so strangely. Finally he stood up
and the words began tumbling from him. Much of what he said I did
not understand. To my seven-year-old mind he explained as best he
could that a Negro had no rights that a white man respected.
He dropped to his knees, in
front of me, placed his hands on my shoulders, and began shaking
me and shouting.
“Can’t you understand what
I’ve been saying?” He demanded. “There is nothing I can do!
If I went down to the market I would only cause trouble for my
family.”
As I looked ay my daddy sitting
by me and with tears in his eyes, I blurted out innocently,
“Daddy, are you afraid?”
He sprang to his feet in an
anger I has never seen before. “Hell, no! I’m not afraid for
myself, I’m not afraid to die. I could go down to that market
and tear him limb from limb with my bare hands, but I am afraid
for you and your mother.”
That night when I knelt to pray,
instead of my usual prayers, I found myself praying that the
butcher would die. After that night we never mentioned him again. * * *
* *
 |
Daisy Bates
Desegregating Little Rock
By Julius Lester
On May 17, 1954, the United States Supreme Court ruled that
segregation in public schools was unconstitutional. This
historic ruling struck at the very core of the social structure
of the South and it was to be expected that many cities and
states would be unwilling to put it into practice. The first big
confrontation came in Little Rock, Arkansas, in the fall of
1957. Nine black students were to enter all-white
Central High School. A few days before school was to open, Orval
Faubus, then governor of Arkansas, ordered the National Guard to
surround the school. He reasoned that violence would occur when
the nine blacks tried to enter the school. However, instead of
ordering the National Guard to stop any violence which might
occur, he ordered the Guard to keep the blacks out of the
school. This was the first open defiance of the Supreme Court
decision by a top state official. |
The nine black students, their parents, and
advisers, had a difficult decision to make. Should the students
still try to enter Central High? It was decided that they
should. When the day came mobs of whites lined the sidewalk and
filled the streets in front of the school. The National Guard
blocked the entrances, pointed bayonets at the black students,
and refused to escort them to safety through the crowd of
whites. As the students tired to make their way through the mob,
they were spat upon and beaten.
The central figure in the drama was Mrs.
Daisy Bates, state president of the National Association for the
Advancement of Colored People. Born and raised in the small town
of Huttig, Arkansas, Daisy Lee Gatson married when she was
eighteen years old and with her husband, L. C. Bates, moved to
Little Rock. There, they decided to assume the ownership of a
weekly newspaper, the State Press. Together, they slowly made the paper into the voice of
blacks in Arkansas, protesting police brutality, the lack of
equal rights in housing, in jobs, and in the courtroom.
In 1952 Mrs. Bates was elected president of
the Arkansas State Conference of the NAACP. The NAACP had taken
the lead in the fight for the desegregation of schools. It was
involved in trying to make sure that the 1954 ruling was put
into practice. Such an effort required not only the skills of
lawyers, but also the commitment of many anonymous people, like
Mrs. Bates, who were responsible for building strong
organizations on the local level to prepare for the day when
desegregation came. Just how important such preparation was did
not become clear, however, until the confrontation around
Central High.
When the governor said that there would be no
desegregation, the blacks of Little Rock could either bow their
heads or fight. Much of the burden for the decision was carried
by Mrs. Bates, as a leader of the black community. The decision
to fight placed the lives of all who were involved in danger.
Without the kind of leadership and courage shown by Mrs. Bates,
the ordeal could not have been endured.
Mrs. Bates’ life was constantly threatened and for
many months. She did not leave her home without carrying a gun,
or go to bed at night without armed guards posted outside her
home. The newspaper which she and her husband had built was
forced out of business by whites. Yet Mrs. Bates and the blacks
of Little Rock persevered. Her book, The
Long Shadow of Little Rock is more than a personal story. It
is the story of countless blacks who, in extraordinary times,
have had to show extraordinary courage
Source:
Young and Black in America
(1972), edited by Julius
Lester
* * * *
*
Commentary on Daisy Bates’ How My
Mother Died
By
Amin Sharif
Daisy Bates is representative of the kind of
unselfish black woman raised under the Old South
tradition of racism and segregation. Not a feminist, nor
a womanist--Daisy was a Race woman who placed the needs
of her people before her own. In her How
My Mother Died, we are given a unique portrait of
how complicated life was for every black man, woman, and
child in the early and middle decades of the 1900’s. Told from the perspective of an
eight year old, Daisy’s writings soon confronts the
reader with issues of race and murder-subjects one would
think would hardly enter into the mind of one so young
as an eight year old. Yet these subjects are not only
on Daisy’s mind, they forever separate her from her
childhood joy. When she is confronted with her first
incident of racism by a white butcher, Daisy finds
herself “praying that the butcher would die.” And
later, when Daisy finds out that her mother was murdered
at the hands of white men, she gives up “dolls and
games” and vows to find the men who had killed her
mother.
All of this would seem like so much sensationalism if
these issues were not handled so well by Daisy. There is
more sadness than rage in Daisy’s writing. And we
find out early on why Daisy’s response to her
mother’s death and white racism does not set her on a
path of self-destruction or pessimism. The reason for
Daisy’s stability is her father or step-father. It is
this man who established a rock solid relationship with
Daisy and who shepherds her through her early crisis. As
much as the themes of racism and violence, the theme of
love between these two--father and daughter--draws the
reader into Daisy’s complex world. In the end, it is
the love of this wise, understanding man that would
transform Daisy and make her into one of the giants of
the Civil Rights Movement. Source:
Young and Black in America
(1972), edited by Julius
Lester
* * *
* *
Charles Mingus:
Fable of Faubus
"Fables of Faubus" is a song
composed by jazz bassist and composer Charles Mingus. One of Mingus'
most explicitly political works, the song was written as a direct
protest against Arkansas governor
Orval E. Faubus, who in 1957 sent out the National Guard to prevent
the integration of Little Rock Central High School by
nine African American teenagers. The song was first recorded for
Mingus' 1959 album,
Mingus Ah Um. Columbia refused to allow the lyrics to the song to be
included, and so the song was recorded as an instrumental on the album.
It was not until October 20, 1960 that the song was recorded with
lyrics, for the album
Charles Mingus Presents Charles Mingus, which was released on the
more independent
Candid label. Due to contractual issues with Columbia, the song
could not be released as "Fables of Faubus", and so the Candid version
was titled "Original Faubus Fables."
 |
The personnel for the
Candid recording were Charles Mingus (bass, vocals),
Dannie Richmond (drums, vocals),
Eric Dolphy (alto saxophone), and
Ted Curson (trumpet). The vocals featured a
call-and-response between Mingus and Richmond. Critic
Don Heckman commented on the unedited "Original Faubus
Fables" in a 1962 review that it was "a classic Negro
put-down in which satire becomes a deadly rapier-thrust.
Faubus emerges in a glare of ridicule as a mock villain whom
no-one really takes seriously. This kind of commentary,
brimful of feeling, bitingly direct and harshly satiric,
appears far too rarely in jazz." The song, either with or
without lyrics, was one of the compositions which Mingus
returned to most often, both on record and in concert.—Wikipedia
photo left:
As fifteen-year-old
Elizabeth Eckford tried to enter the school, soldiers of
the National Guard, under orders from Arkansas Governor
Faubus, would step in her way to prevent her from entering. |
* *
* * *
|
Fable of Faubus
By Charles Mingus
Oh, Lord, don't let 'em shoot us!
Oh, Lord, don't let 'em stab us!
Oh, Lord, don't let 'em tar and feather us!
Oh, Lord, no more swastikas!
Oh, Lord, no more Ku Klux Klan!
Name me someone who's ridiculous,
Dannie.
Governor Faubus!
Why is he so sick and ridiculous?
He won't permit integrated schools.
Then he's a fool! Boo! Nazi Fascist
supremists!
Boo! Ku Klux Klan (with your Jim Crow plan)
Name me a handful that's ridiculous,
Dannie Richmond.
Faubus, Rockefeller, Eisenhower
Why are they so sick and ridiculous?
Two, four, six, eight:
They brainwash and teach you hate.
H-E-L-L-O, Hello.
Orval E. Faubus was the governor of Arkansas in 1957 and
against desegregation. He sent the National Guard to prevent
black children from attending high school in Little Rock. |
* * *
* *
Bill
Moyers Interviews Douglass A. Blackmon
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/06202008/watch2.html
Douglas A. Blackmon,
Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the
Civil War to World War II (2008)
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Greenback Planet: How the Dollar Conquered
the World and Threatened Civilization as We Know It
By H. W. Brands
In Greenback Planet, acclaimed historian H. W. Brands charts the dollar's astonishing rise to become the world's principal currency. Telling the story with the verve of a novelist, he recounts key episodes in U.S. monetary history, from the Civil War debate over fiat money (greenbacks) to the recent worldwide financial crisis. Brands explores the dollar's changing relations to gold and silver and to other currencies and cogently explains how America's economic might made the dollar the fundamental standard of value in world finance. He vividly describes the 1869 Black Friday attempt to corner the gold market, banker J. P. Morgan's bailout of the U.S. treasury, the creation of the Federal Reserve, and President Franklin Roosevelt's handling of the bank panic of 1933. Brands shows how lessons learned (and not learned) in the Great Depression have influenced subsequent U.S. monetary policy, and how the dollar's dominance helped transform economies in countries ranging from Germany and Japan after World War II to Russia and China today. He concludes with a sobering dissection of the 2008 world financial debacle, which exposed the power--and the enormous risks--of the dollar's worldwide reign. The Economy |
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Sex at the Margins
Migration, Labour Markets and the Rescue Industry
By Laura María Agustín
This book explodes several myths: that selling sex is completely different from any other kind of work, that migrants who sell sex are passive victims and that the multitude of people out to save them are without self-interest. Laura Agustín makes a passionate case against these stereotypes, arguing that the label 'trafficked' does not accurately describe migrants' lives and that the 'rescue industry' serves to disempower them. Based on extensive research amongst both migrants who sell sex and social helpers, Sex at the Margins provides a radically different analysis. Frequently, says Agustin, migrants make rational choices to travel and work in the sex industry, and although they are treated like a marginalised group they form part of the dynamic global economy. Both powerful and controversial, this book is essential reading for all those who want to understand the increasingly important relationship between sex markets, migration and the desire for social justice. "Sex at the Margins rips apart distinctions between migrants, service work and sexual labour and reveals the utter complexity of the contemporary sex industry. This book is set to be a trailblazer in the study of sexuality."—Lisa Adkins, University of London |
* * * * *
The White Masters of the
World
From
The World and Africa, 1965
By W. E. B. Du Bois
W. E. B. Du Bois’
Arraignment and Indictment of White Civilization
(Fletcher)
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* * *
Ancient African Nations
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The Death of Emmett Till by Bob Dylan
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The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll
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Only a Pawn in Their Game
Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson Thanks America for
Slavery /
George Jackson /
Hurricane Carter
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The Journal of Negro History issues at Project Gutenberg
The
Haitian Declaration of Independence 1804
/
January 1, 1804 -- The Founding of
Haiti
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