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- 148 Chapter Eleven A BATTLE EVERY DAY The United States’ enemies were having a field day. Communists had always been able to score points in the running worldwide propaganda war: the U.S. government’s acceptance of the white South’s “way of life” represented unmitigated hypocrisy. After September 4 and after the photographs of Elizabeth Eckford being harassed by the mob had gone around the world, Little Rock had become a major foreign policy sore spot. With the debacle on September 23, there was no doubt who had won a major battle. Did mobs rule in the United States, or did the federal government? Before the morning of September 24 was out, President Eisenhower signed a proclamation that began, “Whereas, certain persons in the state of Arkansas . . . have willfully obstructed the enforcement of orders from the federal district court,” they must “cease and desist.”1 He backed up his statement by not only federalizing the Arkansas National Guard but, in his most controversial action, ordering the deployment to Little Rock of 1,000 troopers from the famed 101st Airborne Division to ensure that the orders of the federal court would be carried out. At 3:30 in the afternoon Bates was back on the telephone to Gloster Current. She began the conversation with obvious excitement: “I haven’t been able to talk with the U.S. attorney Cobb, but I understand they have called out the troops.” She was meeting with the children at 6:00 that evening. The news media were overwhelming her. “From all over they are coming here; I have all these newspaper people and no facilities for them.”2 With the troops on the way, the eyes of the world were again on Little Rock. Understanding the public relations value to the NAACP, Current was totally sympathetic. “You will have to set up a press phone in your place there; get some emergency telephone service and the Association will take care of it. . . . I know what this is costing you, Daisy. I understand the problem. Work out what it costs with the entertainment and extra expenses and the extra help . . . and we will work it out immediately.”3 Bates told Current she had only gotten two hours’ sleep the night before. “The FBI started calling me about two o’clock this morning,” but she wasn’t complaining, so much as describing how busy she was. George Howard had called her about witnesses for a court hearing. She was at the center of all the activity and knew it. She blurted out to Current, “I just employed Chris Mercer for a whole week. He has been my backbone.”4 Because of all the litigation, Bates desperately needed someone who had the time to help her understand the legal hoops through which the NAACP was being forced to jump. Current, in this conversation, okayed Mercer’s employment for as long as “you will need him.” With Frank Smith already on the payroll, Bates thought it necessary to discuss Smith’s performance. Smith had disappeared at 11:00 in the morning during the crucial events the preceding day, and she had not seen him until today. “When I asked him where he had been,” she said sarcastically, “he said he had to go home to hold his wife’s hand because she was nervous.”5 Though Smith was still on the NAACP’s payroll until the end of the year, he was effectively finished as an employee. Bates’s forte was public relations. She was in her element with the newsmen who were swarming the place. “I have been speaking to Jimmy Hicks [of the New York-based Amsterdam News]. I told him that he had not been on our side for quite some time and now that he was here in Little Rock, I wanted him to see the type of leadership we have from the Youth Council on up. I told him that when he printed his story to make sure to print what the NAACP had been doing. That we are making history and the NAACP is doing it. We have to get our story told in a manner it should be told.”6 This was music to Current’s ears. In this capacity, Bates was worth her weight in gold. Current told her that he would get her money for all the entertaining she had been doing “right away.” As Current himself pointed out, “the Negro reporters . . . really have no place to go in...

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