Later Life
Then Bates moved to Washington, D.C., and worked for the Democratic National Committee. She also served in the administration of U.S. President Lyndon Baines Johnson working on anti-poverty programs. In 1965, she suffered a stroke and returned to Little Rock.
In 1968 she moved to the rural black community of Mitchellville in Desha County in eastern Arkansas. She concentrated on improving the lives of her neighbors by establishing a self-help program which was responsible for new sewer systems, paved streets, a water system, and community center.
Bates revived the Arkansas State Press in the 1980s after L.C. Bates, her husband, died in 1980.
In 1986 the University of Arkansas Press republished The Long Shadow of Little Rock, which became the first reprinted edition ever to earn an American Book Award. The following year she sold the newspaper, but continued to act as a consultant. Little Rock paid perhaps the ultimate tribute, not only to Bates but to the new era she helped initiate, by opening the Daisy Bates Elementary School and by making the third Monday in February "George Washington's Birthday and Daisy Gatson Bates Day" an official state holiday.
Bates died in Little Rock on November 4, 1999.
Filmmaker Sharon La Cruise produced and directed a documentary film about Bates. Daisy Bates: First Lady of Little Rock premiered February 2, 2012 as part of the Independent Lens series on PBS.
Read more about this topic: Daisy Bates (civil Rights Activist)
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