This is a postscript to my interview with Daisy Bates. After I turned off
the tape recorder and told Mrs. Bates that I planned to have an
interview with Vivion Brewer later on in the week, she reflected that
Mrs. Brewer was a fine woman in her estimation, dedicated and
hard-working, but that, like many other whites in the community, Mrs.
Brewer had wanted to take over the direction of race relations in Little
Rock, that she had wanted Daisy Bates and the black community to turn
over control of the movement to the white community, to these liberal
members of the white community. And Mrs. Bates felt that this clearly
would be impossible, because Mrs. Brewer and other white people had
never experienced the kinds of traumas and difficulties; they had not
had the black experience, so that they couldn't know what black people
wanted and needed, and they couldn't have been effective leaders of the
movement. Mrs. Bates also pointed out, after the tape recorder had been
turned off, that at one point—I believe it was in early 1958—Mr. Herbert
Thomas, who is a prominent businessman in Little Rock—he's the founder
and president or chairman of the board of the Pyramid Life Insurance
Company—had tried to devise a compromise solution to the Little Rock
crisis, and it was a solution which never came to fruition, was never
fully developed, largely because, as Herbert Thomas would tell you,
Daisy Bates refused to support the plan. But according to Mrs. Bates'
telling of the tale, early one evening she got a call from Rev. Walker,
[UNCLEAR] pastor, saying, "Mrs. Bates, did you know
that there's going to be a large meeting tonight
down at the YWCA, that Mr. Herbert Thomas has called a meeting of the
black leadership?" And Mrs. Bates had not heard about the meeting, had
not been invited and not been included, and the meeting was to start in
about twenty minutes. So she threw on some clothes and dashed down to
the Y and walked in just as the meeting began. And as a result, the
meeting kind of fell apart. And Mrs. Bates claims that the Gazette later reported that Herbert Thomas claimed that the
blacks in Little Rock were afraid of Mrs. Bates, that she was an
outsider who came in and stirred up trouble and had an enormous amount
of control, power, influence over their lives, and they feared her, and
her presence at that meeting inhibited any meaningful discussion and
prevented the further development of the Thomas plan.
Daisy Bates was born November 11, 1914.
The state president of the Arkansas NAACP, Mrs. Daisy Bates—Mrs. L.C.
Bates—was a major participant in the Little Rock crisis of 1957. Today's
interview with Mrs. Bates is being held at her home in Little Rock at
1207 West 28th Street on October 11, 1976. The interviewer is Elizabeth
Jacoway.