Last updated: September 6, 2022
Place
Home of Daisy and L.C. Bates
NPS Photo
Quick Facts
Location:
1207 West 28th Street in Little Rock, Arkansas. While privately owned, the house is open to the public. For more information and to schedule a tour, call (501) 375-1957.
Significance:
The Daisy and L.C. Bates Home is nationally significant for its role as the de facto command post during the Central High School desegregation crisis in Little Rock, Arkansas.
Designation:
National Historic Landmark
MANAGED BY:
Amenities
2 listed
Accessible Sites, Scenic View/Photo Spot
The Daisy and L.C. Bates Home is nationally significant for its role as the de facto command post during the Central High School desegregation crisis in Little Rock, Arkansas. The house served as a haven for the Little Rock Nine, the group of African American students who desegregated Little Rock Central High School, and as a place to plan the best way to achieve their goals.
As the president of the Arkansas State Conference of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), Daisy Bates symbolized the legal fight to desegregate the public schools after the U.S. Supreme Court's 1954 ruling in Brown v. Board of Education that found segregated schools unconstitutional. Mrs. Bates combined her public roles as the state NAACP president and co-publisher (with her husband, L.C.) of the Arkansas State Press to become a mentor to the nine teenagers (known as the Little Rock Nine) who ultimately desegregated Central High School.
Throughout the desegregation crisis, the Bates' home became the official pick-up and drop-off site for the Little Rock Nine's trips to and from Central High School each school day and, consequently, a gathering spot for the Nine and members of the press. As a result, the Bates home was a frequent target of violence by segregationists. In August 1957, a rock crashed through the living room window with a note attached that read "STONE THIS TIME. DYNAMITE NEXT." Two crosses were burned in the front yard on different occasions and shots were fired into the house from a passing car. Over the course of the 1957-58 school year, this home "became a fortress" with a volunteer guard committee, flood lights and frequent calls to the police.
The perseverance of Mrs. Bates and the Little Rock Nine during these turbulent years sent a strong message throughout the South that desegregation worked and the tradition of racial segregation under "Jim Crow" would no longer be tolerated in the United States of America. The Bates house stands as a symbol of the role of civil rights advocates who fought against legal and social obstacles to educational opportunity for African American youth during a period of southern massive resistance to desegregation.