Flier issued to discredit Daisy Bates

Source catalog description

This description refers to material held by Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture. Visual details below describe the original material.

A white paper flier produced by a segregationist group discrediting civil rights activist Daisy Bates. The flyer is designed with centered black print, Bates’s arrest mugshots and police record at an attempt to frame her civil rights activism as criminal, demean her by gender and by ethnicity. From top to bottom the flyer reads: [“MRS” DAISY BATES / Little Rock’s “Lady” of The Year / (SEE POLICE RECORD BELOW) / CENTRAL HIGH SCHOOL’S MOST PROMINENT P.T.A. MEMBER, SELF-APPOINTED PROTCTOR OF NINE NEGRO / CHILDREN, HAVING RECEIVED “SUPOENA” POWERS FROM JESS MATTHEWS, CENTRAL HIGH SCHOOL PRIN- / CIPAL, AND ALSO AUTHORITY TO CROSS EXAMINE WHITE STUDENTS, UNOFFICIAL “PRINCIPAL” IN CHARGE / OF LECTURING WHITE STUDENTS AT CENTRAL HIGH WHO “CROSS” ANY OF HER “BRAVE” NINE NEGRO STU- / DENTS.]. Below Bates’s mugshots, the racist commentary continues with her police record and an appeal to parents: [PARENTS: DO YOU KNOW - - - - / 1.

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