Daisy Lee Gaston Bates was born in Huttig, Arkansas in 1920 and reared by adoptive parents Orlee and Susie Smith. Bates' biological mother was brutally attacked, murdered and submerged in a pond by three white men. Shortly after the tragic incident, her father was forced to leave Huttig because he feared reprisals from some angry whites, who did not want him to prosecute the suspects. The tragedy of her mother's death and racial discrimination she experienced growing up caused Bates to dislike Whites. Her father disapproved of her prejudice toward whites, and moments before his death, said the words that inspired her to divert her anger against whites to activism for civil rights. Her father's words contained a timeless lesson:
"Hate can destroy you....Don't hate white people just because they're white. If you hate, make it count for something. Hate the humiliations we are living under in the South. Hate the discrimination that eats away at the soul of every black man and woman. Hate the insults hurled at us by white scum--and they try to do something about it, or your hate won't spell at thing."
Bates said of her father's message, "He had passed on to me a priceless heritage--one that was to sustain me throughout the years to come....I've never forgotten that incident. I decided I would do what I could to help my race."
Bates married Lucius Christopher Bates, an insurance agent and close family friend, in 1941. They moved to Little Rock, Arkansas and founded the State Press newspaper. The newspaper served, then and today, as a promoter of social and economic upliftment for the African American citizens of Arkansas.
Orval E. Faubus, who became Governor of Arkansas on August 10, 1954, pledged in his campaign statement on school integration, "that the rights of all will be protected but that the problem of desegregation will be solved on the local level, with state authorities standing ready to assist in every way possible." Two years later, on July 11, 1956, Governer Faubus said at a campaign rally that, "No school district will be forced to mix the races as long as I am governor of Arkansas."
