“From without, no wonderful effect is wrought within ourselves, unless some interior, responding wonder meets it.”

— Daisy Gatson Bates

Magical Women honours survivor Daisy Gatson Bates. Bates was a complex, unconventional and largely forgotten Driving Force of the civil rights movement.

A Survivor from Birth

Bates was born Daisy Gatson in Huttig, Arkansas, in 1914. When she was an infant, her mother, Millie Riley, was killed by three white men. Terrified, her father, John Gatson, fled town and left her in the care of their friends Orlee and Susie Smith. Nee Gatson, Bates attended the local segregated schools in her youth.

An activist who broke racial and gender/sexual orientation barriers Bates would spearhead one of the most significant moments in the Civil Rights Movement. Bates played a central role leading the desegregation of Little Rock’s Central High School. Her actions and persistence shattered barriers forcing a ripple to grow into a metaphorical earthquake that would shake Little Rock and the rest of the USA.

Bates is a Magical Woman because she confounds the expectations of femininity where society prefer their heroines to be modest or in shape, form and reflection that they can accept, agree with and understand as a “change-maker” because of the way they look and should behave.

Bates was challenging as a woman

Like many Neurodivergent females, she was criticised as being ‘pushy,’ ‘ambitious,’ ‘aggressive,’ “challenging” - qualities for which men in leadership roles are praised; traits that make men powerful.

Yet, by possessing these precise qualities, Bates was able to have a significant impact on her community and wider afield.

In 1968, Bates moved to Mitchellville, Arkansas, a majority black town that was also impoverished and lacked economic resources. When Bates arrived, she used her organisational skills to pull together residents and improve the community.

The Only Woman Allowed To Speak

When we think about the civil rights movement, our first thought turns to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. who delivered his iconic “I Have a Dream” speech.

Magical Women want to draw your attention to the other civil rights leader to address the crowd that day:

Daisy Gatson Bates.

But Her Speech Was Written by a Man

She was the only woman permitted to speak, though not for long, and not in her own words. After being introduced by march organiser Bayard Rustin, who was a Gay Civil rights leader, Bates delivered the 142-word “Tribute to Women.”

Whilst her statement was brief - women in this day were timed as well as censored it seems - as the speech she read out was written by a male staffer.

However, Bates’ writing shows she was far from unable to speak up for herself and others. A powerful orator and writer, she put her words to print in the newspaper she owned with her husband.

She created empowering spaces for herself where she could write uncensored and her words could be read. She was a journalist who persisted and it was those very traits that make men powerful and are so often used to silence, exclude and so often fire women, that drove her to create a (metaphorical) earthquake across the country to force change in the law.

How she became a Tour De Force

When the Supreme Court ruled segregated schools unconstitutional in 1954. When the national NAACP office started to focus on Arkansas’ schools, they chose Bates to plan the strategy and she became the driving force in enrolling black students into all white schools.

She organised the Little Rock Nine: choosing nine students in 1957 to integrate Central High School in Little Rock. She worked tirelessly to ensure they were protected from violent crowds. She also advised the group becoming their mentor and even joined the school’s parent organisation.

She picked them up in the mornings and drove them to school and picked them up from school at the end of each day.

She refused to accept the all white schools attempts to deny them and other blacks entry. Bates used her newspaper to publicise the schools who didn’t follow the federal mandate and highlighted their prejudices.

Violence Against Women

Bates and her family were often a target for intimidation. Rocks were often thrown at and into her home several times and she received bullet shells in the post. These threats forced the Bates family to shut down their newspaper.

Bates’ Legacy

After the success of the Little Rock Nine, Bates worked on improving the status of African Americans in the South of the USA. Her influential work with school integration brought her national recognition.

She published her memoirs, The Long Shadow of Little Rock in 1962. Eventually, the book would win an American Book Award.

Bates died on 4th November in 1999. Her work was recognised by the state of Arkansas who proclaimed the 3rd Monday in February, Daisy Gatson Bates Day. In 1999, she was posthumously awarded the Medal of Freedom.

We hope that our sharing of Daisy Bates’ legacy, offers Magical Women readers and participants, contributors and allies hope, that you can grow here, you can find empowering and relaxed spaces to speak, to share and to grow, where you can attend to your art and writing practice without fear of being silenced, excluded, corrected or shut down.

Here, you are offered an environment where you can think for yourself as yourself.

Magical Women’s mission is to remove the risk found in mainstream systems, structures and neurotypical understanding around “equality and diversity” offering instead an empowering space because you are empowering it, and we are empowered by you.

We need more Daisy Bates’ and more black Magical Women.

Please go to ‘About Womoon’ on our website to read about our paid call outs for poetry and opinion pieces that centre around the themes “Rage” and “Persist”.

We need your voices. We need to grow. Please contact us. (info [at] magicalwomen.co.uk)

Written by Elinor Rowlands for Magical Women #blacklivesmatter

Persist

We honour Daisy Gatson Bates, complex and unconventional #blacklivesmatter // Elinor Rowlands