Daisy Bates, president of the Arkansas chapter of the NAACP, served as a liaison between the local school board and the Little Rock Nine, speaking on behalf of the students. She was also responsible for arranging a multiracial group of ministers to escort the nine students into school on the morning of September 4, 1957. After the clash that day, Bates’s house functioned as a meeting place and organizational post for the students and their parents. They met here on the morning of September 23, the new date set for the school’s integration.
The Bates house and property were vandalized in several acts of anti-integration violence. Shots were fired through the home’s windows, and crosses were burned in the yard on two occasions. After the school board closed its high schools in 1958-59 to avoid integration, the Bates home was the target of an incendiary bomb.
Today, the home is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Tours are available but must be scheduled in advance.
