Posts tagged
'Daisy Bates'

In a non-binding vote, the Arkansas Senate today expressed support for civil rights figure Daisy Bates and musician Johnny Cash to represent the state in the national Capitol’s collection of state statuary. Former Sen. James Clarke and lawyer Uriah Rose stand there now.

Here come new legislative proposals, including one to expand the conditions that qualify someone to use medical marijuana and another to replace existing Arkansas statues in the Hall of Statuary in Washington with a famous former doper better known for his music, Johnny Cash, and civil rights leader Daisy Bates.

On Monday night, the Weekend Theater will present a one-night-only production of "Go, Granny D!" a new play about the activist Doris Haddock, who famously walked 3,200 miles across the country back in 2000 to advocate for campaign finance reform. The play is a collaboration between the longtime Off-Broadway actress Barbara Bates Smith and the musician and manager Jeff Sebens. I spoke to Smith over the phone recently about Haddock's life and legacy, and about the importance of Little Rock to the play.

Little Rock lawyer Chris Mercer, a Little Rock lawyer who was an NAACP field secretary during the civil rights struggles of the 1950s and 60s and an advisor to Daisy Bates during the Little Rock school desegregation crisis, died today at 88.

I mentioned earlier that Washington's Birthday is a good day to think about veterans. This is also a state holiday — Daisy Batson Gates Day, a tribute to the NAACP leader who was a high-profile figure in the Little Rock school crisis of 1957 (and an increasingly nuanced one, as careful history begins to supplant some folkloric themes.)

It helped desegregate LR.

University of Arkansas hosted the world premiere of Daisy Bates: First Lady of Little Rock, a well-researched documentary that presents a frank portrait of a complex activist.

UALR will screen "Daisy Bates: First Lady of Little Rock" on Nov. 30.

The NAACP plans a conference on resegregation of public schools. It will be named in honor of the late Arkansas NAACP official, Daisy Bates, a key figure in the desegregation of Central High.