Educational Issues and Controversies

Entry Category: Educational Issues and Controversies - Starting with B

Bates, Daisy Lee Gatson

Daisy Lee Gatson Bates was a mentor to the Little Rock Nine, the African American students who integrated Central High School in Little Rock in 1957. She and the Little Rock Nine gained national and international recognition for their courage and persistence during the desegregation of Central High when Governor Orval Faubus ordered members of the Arkansas National Guard to prevent the entry of black students. She and her husband, Lucious Christopher (L. C.) Bates, published the Arkansas State Press, a newspaper dealing primarily with civil rights and other issues in the black community. The identity of Daisy Gatson’s birth parents has not been conclusively established. Before the age of seven, she was taken in as a foster child by …

Beals, Melba Pattillo

Melba Pattillo Beals made history as a member of the Little Rock Nine, the nine African American students involved in the desegregation of Little Rock Central High School in 1957. The world watched as they braved constant intimidation and threats from those who opposed desegregation of the formerly all-white high school. She later recounted this harrowing year in her book titled Warriors Don’t Cry: A Searing Memoir of the Battle to Desegregate Little Rock’s Central High School. Melba Pattillo was born on December 7, 1941, in Little Rock (Pulaski County). Beals grew up surrounded by family members who knew the importance of an education. Her mother, Lois Marie Pattillo, PhD, was one of the first Black graduates of the University …

Bentonville Schools, Desegregation of

Bentonville (Benton County) was one of the earliest school districts in Arkansas to admit African American students after the U.S. Supreme Court handed down its 1954 Brown v. Board of Education school desegregation decision. As Benton County was located in an area of low Black population, in practice this meant admitting the sole Black student living in the district to Bentonville High School. Even so, desegregation took place under a veil of secrecy. At the time of the Brown decision, Arkansas had a total of 423 school districts. Of these, 184 served only white students, eleven served only Black students, and 228 had both white and Black students. Many of the early moves toward school desegregation were in northwestern Arkansas, …

Brewer, Vivion Mercer Lenon

Vivion Mercer Lenon Brewer is best known for helping to found the Women’s Emergency Committee to Open Our Schools (WEC) in 1958 during the desegregation of Central High School in Little Rock (Pulaski County). She helped arrange the WEC’s initial meeting and served as the organization’s first chairperson until September 1960. Vivion Lenon was born on October 6, 1900, in Little Rock to Warren E. Lenon and Clara Mercer Lenon. She graduated from Little Rock High School (now Central High) in 1917 and attended Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts, where she majored in sociology and graduated in 1921. In 1926, she enrolled in the Arkansas Law School in Little Rock and worked in her father’s bank, People’s Savings Bank, in …

Burrow v. Pocahontas School District

Arkansas has struggled for much of its history to fund the education of its children—particularly during the Great Depression, when the state found itself unable to pay its debts, match federal aid for such things as food commodities, or pay teachers in order to keep schools open for a full term. At that time and others, the Arkansas General Assembly and the governor, in search of remedies to get through a crisis, enacted laws that seemed at odds with the state and federal constitutions. Disputes over these acts went to state courts and sometimes to the Arkansas Supreme Court. One such case was Burrow v. Pocahontas School District No. 19, in which the Supreme Court upheld a legislative remedy allowing …