The Long Shadow of Little Rock

About

“This is a book which I hope will be read by every American. It is simply told and easy to read, but not pleasant.”
—Eleanor Roosevelt, from the foreword to the first edition (1962)

“Daisy Bates’ vivid memoir illuminates one of the key events of an historic freedom struggle. . . . Her story will serve as a source of inspiration for future participants in the long struggle for human freedom.”
—From the afterword

At an event honoring Daisy Bates as 1990’s Distinguished Citizen then-governor Bill Clinton called her “the most distinguished Arkansas citizen of all time.” Her classic account of the 1957 Little Rock School Crisis, The Long Shadow of Little Rock, couldn’t be found on most bookstore shelves in 1962 and was banned throughout the South. In 1988, after the University of Arkansas Press reprinted it, it won an American Book Award.

On September 3, 1957, Gov. Orval Faubus called out the National Guard to surround all-white Central High School and prevent the entry of nine black students, challenging the Supreme Court’s 1954 order to integrate all public schools. On September 25, Daisy Bates, an official of the NAACP in Arkansas, led the nine children into the school with the help of federal troops sent by President Eisenhower–the first time in eighty-one years that a president had dispatched troops to the South to protect the constitutional rights of black Americans. This new edition of Bates’s own story about these historic events is being issued to coincide with the fiftieth anniversary of the Little Rock School crisis in 2007.

Author

Daisy Bates (1913?-1999) and her husband published the Arkansas State Press from 1941 to 1959. She served on the NAACP’s national board from 1957 to 1970. In 1957 the Associated Press chose her as the Woman of the Year and one of the top ten newsmakers in the world.

Clayborne Carson is professor of history and founding director of the Martin Luther King Jr. Research and Education Institute at Stanford University.

Adoption

Adopted at: Kalamazoo College
Course: AMST 111 History of the U.S. II
Course Description: This class provides a broad survey of American history since the Civil War. We will cover a variety of issues in this period, ranging from national and international politics to class, race, and gender relations, from economic and demographic developments to social and cultural changes.
Professor: James Lewis
Term: Winter 2022

Adopted at: University of Washington
Course: HSTAA 345A, US Political And Economic History, 1920 – Present
Course Description: Explores key moments and people in the history of the United States from the end of World War I to the present.
Professor: Margaret O’Mara
Term: Spring 2018

Adopted at: University of Georgia
Course: HIST 4120, The Civil Rights Movement
Course Description: Examines the strategies and philosophies of various organizations in the Civil Rights movement and studies the contributions made by key personalities such as Jo Ann Gibson Robinson, Rosa Parks, Daisy Bates, Ella Baker, Septima Clark and Fannie Lou Hamer.
Professor: Chana Kai Lee
Term: Spring 2017

Adopted at: University of Central Arkansas
Course: HIST 3310, Social Science Concepts in Arkansas History
Course Description: This course introduces students to concepts of social science in relationship to selected content of Arkansas History.
Professor: Dr. Story Matkin-Rawn
Term: Spring 2016

Adopted at: Macalester College
Course: AMST 110, Introduction to African American Studies
Course Description: This class will explore what it has meant to be African-American in the United States, and how this identity shaped Black community, thought, and life.
Professor: Duchess Harris
Term: Fall 2014

Media

Sacrifice & Determination: Lessons from Daisy Bates (Southern Living)

Daisy Bates at the Women’s National History Museum

Daisy Bates at the Encyclopedia of Arkansas

The Daisy Bates papers at the University of Arkansas Library