Existing comment:
Daisy Bates Reports on Little Rock Students' Progress
Daisy Bates, publisher of The Arkansas State Press and president of the Arkansas State Conference of NAACP Branches, led the NAACP's campaign to desegregate the public schools in Little Rock, Arkansas. Thurgood Marshall served as chief counsel. The Little Rock school board approved the admission of nine black teenagers to Central High School. The decision outraged many white citizens including Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus. He ordered the Arkansas National Guard to surround Central High School on the pretext of preserving law and order, and the black students were repeatedly blocked by the guardsmen and angry white mobs. President Eisenhower sent federal troops to Little Rock to uphold the Supreme Court's ruling on September 25, 1957, to safely escort the students into Central High School. In the midst of the crisis, Daisy Bates wrote this letter. |