The Personal is Political: Daisy Bates

Students will learn about how Daisy Bates’ experiences as a black girl growing up in the Jim Crow South prepared her to be a civil rights leader. Orphaned after the rape and murder of her birth mother when she was just a baby and stymied by a grossly unequal segregated educational system, Bates dedicated herself to increasing opportunities for future generations of African Americans. In her crusade for equal education, Bates used her identity as a victim of Jim Crow segregation to support her leadership and her cause. In this sense, Daisy Bates’ personal story became the foundation for her political civil rights activism in Little Rock.

In 1957, Daisy Bates became a household name.  When her efforts to integrate Little Rock’s Central High School were met with steadfast resistance from local segregationists, she refused to compromise black children’s constitutional right to equal education—triggering a violent confrontation that captured the attention of the nation. President Eisenhower was forced to send federal troops into Little Rock to enforce racial school desegregation and restore law and order.   The President’s action made Daisy Bates, one of the few African-American women with a formal leadership role in the growing civil rights movements of the 1950s, an instant celebrity. 

The Associated Press named her the 1957 Woman of the Year in Education. The NAACP bestowed her with its highest honor, the Spingarn Medal. She gave keynote addresses across the United States. In 1963, Bates was the only woman to address the crowd at the historic March on Washington, where Dr. Martin Luther King delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech.

In this lesson, students will read excerpts from Daisy Bates’ 1962 memoir, The Long Shadow of Little Rock, and examine the intersection of personal and political in their own lives.

Essential Questions

• How is writing a memoir different from writing an autobiography?
• What is the difference between desegregation and integration?
• What role do childhood experiences play in development into adulthood?
• What did Daisy Bates seek to accomplish by writing her memoir?
• What struggles or challenges did Daisy Bates face a young girl, and how are her experiences similar to obstacles you have faced in your own life?

Objectives

Students will:

• Explore how personal stories are written with political goals;
• Identify how Daisy Bates uses her story to speak about the larger experiences of Southern African Americans living during the Jim Crow Era;
• Locate passages in the text where Bates makes her life political;
• Reflect on the resiliency of the African-American community; and
• Determine how some black activists’ development was shaped by their childhood experiences.

Materials Needed

•  “The Politics of Remembering and Writing about Black Childhoods [2],” excerpt from “Remembering Daisy Bates: A Biography of Midcentury Black Womanhood” by John Lewis Adams
• Chart Paper
• Highlighters
• Markers

Central Texts

Excerpts from “Rebirth,” Chapter two from Daisy Bates’s memoir, The Long Shadow of Little Rock:

• Excerpt One: What it means to be Negro [3]
  
• Excerpt Two: The death of my mother [4]
  
• Excerpt Three: The Death of Daddy [5]

Learning Activities

Part 1: Word Work

Many historical figures have written biographical accounts about their personal lives and political activism. Oftentimes, activists use the mediums of memoir and autobiography to forge a connection between their past and present actions. They seek to use their past, particularly their childhoods, to justify and explain their later activism. “Rebirth” can help you understand the ways in which personal identity and political beliefs intersect in memoir and autobiography.

1. Before reading the first excerpt from Daisy Bates’ memoir, review definitions for the following words: memoir, autobiography, biography, symbolism, personify, didactic, Jim Crow, integration and desegregation. (Note: To check for understanding, students may use each word in a complete sentence.)
2. Read the first five paragraphs of What it means to be Negro as a full class.
3. Use highlighters to identify Bates’ main points.
4. Divide into small groups. Each group will read one of the three excerpts from  “Rebirth.” (Group one will read the remainder of What it Means to be Negro about Daisy Bates’ first personal encounter with racism. Group two will read The Death of My Mother, about the rape and murder of Bates’ birth mother. Group three will read The Death of Daddy, about the parents who raised Bates and the death of her adoptive father.)
5. Each group will read its assigned passage, highlighting important information, main points and quotes that capture how Bates uses her personal story to call attention to the issues of race- and gender-based discrimination.
6. After reading and highlighting your passage, discuss your selections as a group.  Which passages best capture how Daisy Bates connects her personal experiences in her hometown to the larger political issues of race- and gender-based discrimination?  Record the most important passages on your chart paper.
7. Once all groups have completed this activity, each will present to the class. Take notes when the other groups are presenting. (Note: Either provide a note-taking handout [6] or allow students to develop their own note-taking style.)
8. Take turns retelling, in your own words, the story you read in your group, and explain why you selected the quotes you chose. You must also explain how Bates uses her personal story to drive home a bigger political statement about race- and gender-based oppression.

Part 2: Close and Critical Reading

Daisy Bates was a civil rights leader who believed that her life possessed larger meaning. Students are free to form their own interpretation of Bates’ life. Interpretations may be dependent on cultural identity, personal experiences and knowledge, and may be different from others’ interpretations. When reading ask the following questions:

1. Why does Daisy Bates choose to include this particular childhood experience in her memoir?
2. What political message was she trying to convey by telling her readers her personal story?
3. Is Daisy Bates persuasive? Do you believe her story? Why or why not?

Part 3: Community Inquiry

Scholars of African-American history have written extensively about how African Americans have used personal stories—autobiography and memoir—to achieve political goals. Many black activists identified childhood events as the beginning of their political activism. In order to understand the political nature of Daisy Bates’ memoir, it is important to understand how and why some African-American activists and writers politicize their lives in their personal accounts.

1. (Note: Set up the room as one large circle with a smaller circle on the inside.) Read “The Politics of Remembering and Writing about Black Childhoods [2]” as an entire group.  Do not take notes or highlight while the passage is being read.
2. After reading, answer the following questions as a class: In Dr. Nellie McKay’s opinion, what reasons motivate some African Americans to write personal accounts? Is Daisy Bates’ memoir an example of a political autobiography? What type of statements does McKay attribute to African-American autobiographies? How do some African-American writers politicize their lives, and why?
3. Return to the text, and highlight what you think are Adams’ two central ideas.
4. In your own words, rewrite the two main points Adams makes about the political nature of black biography and black childhoods.
5. After you have annotated the text and shared your story with the rest of the class, return to your group’s reading (either excerpt 1, 2 or 3 from “Rebirth” ).
6. Each group should move into the inner circle as its excerpt is discussed. (Note: Help facilitate a discussion driven by the Close and Critical Reading and Community Inquiry questions.) You should also discuss similarities and differences between your passage and those read by your classmates. 

Part 4: Write to the Source

Daisy Bates was one of the civil rights movement’s most important female leaders. She endured a difficult childhood and used her traumatic experiences as fuel for her civil rights activism. The rape and murder of her birth mother, abandonment by her birth father, a confrontation with her mother’s killers, and the loss of her adoptive father to cancer Bates’ youth a difficult one. These same events propelled her into a life dedicated to changing the history she was forced to live.

Write a letter to Daisy Bates about the event in her childhood with which you most identify. Think about the following questions:

• Why do I identify with this part of Daisy Bates’ childhood?
• How did the experience I selected shape the woman Bates became?

Part 5: Do Something

Celebrate Daisy Bates Day, which is the third Monday in February. Use the day to educate your school and community about an important, but lesser-known civil rights leader.

Extension Activity

Research civil rights activists who are still living. Select one, and write them a letter thanking them for their leadership in the civil rights movement.

Common Core State Standards (English Language Arts Standards [7]) 

Reading

1. Read closely to determine what the text says explicitly and to make logical inferences from it; cite specific textual evidence when writing or speaking to support conclusions drawn from the text.

2. Determine central ideas or themes of a text and analyze their development; summarize the key supporting details and ideas.

3. Analyze how and why individuals, events, and ideas develop and interact over the course of a text.

4. Interpret words and phrases as they are used in a text, including determining technical, connotative, and figurative meanings, and analyze how specific word choices shape meaning or tone.

10. Read and comprehend complex literacy and informational texts independently and proficiently.

Writing

1. Write arguments to support claims in an analysis of substantive topics or texts, using valid reasoning and relevant and sufficient evidence.

2. Write informative/explanatory texts to examine and convey complex ideas and information clearly and accurately through the effective selection, organization, and analysis of content.

3. Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique, well-chosen details, and well-structured event sequences.

4. Produce clear and coherent writing in which the development, organization, and style are appropriate to task, purpose, and audience.

9. Draw evidence from literary or informational texts to support analysis, reflection, and research 

Speaking and Listening

1. Prepare for and participate effectively in a range of conversations and collaborations with diverse partners, building on others’ ideas and expressing their own clearly and persuasively.

2. Integrate and evaluate information presented in diverse media and formats, including visually, quantitatively, and orally.

3. Evaluate a speaker’s point of view, reasoning, and use of evidence and rhetoric.

4. Present information, findings, and supporting evidence such that listeners can follow the line of reasoning and the organization, development, and style are appropriate to task, purpose, and audience.

Language

1. Demonstrate command of the conventions of standard English grammar and usage when writing or speaking.

2. Demonstrate command of the conventions of standard English capitalization, punctuation, and spelling when writing.

3. Demonstrate understanding of figurative language, word relationships, and nuances in word meanings.