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Day — 505- Daily Haibun Journey — Daisy Bates
Today, the third Monday of February, is known as Daisy Gaston Bates Day in Arkansas. Daisy Bates is famed for helping to start the one of the first black newspapers entirely dedicated to the Civil Rights Movement. The paper featured success stories, births and weddings but unlike white papers, they also publicized cross-burnings, lynchings, and other crimes against African American’s that were pretty much ignored by the police. As the Civil Rights Movement gained momentum, these stories appeared more and more on the front page of the Arkansas State Press. She served as president of her local NAACP in Little, Rock Arkansas. This civil rights activist played a large role in ending school segregation in Arkansas. She did this by helping to organize the Little Rock Nine who were a group of nine black students who integrated Central High School.
Mrs. Bates later went on to work for the Democratic National Convention and on anti-poverty projects for President Johnson. She even went back to Arkansas and helped transform one of the worst impoverished neighborhoods.
