Daisy Bates

These

two are Dr. Norman Borlaug and then Daisy Bates.

So Borlaug's from Iowa and Daisy Bates is the piece that represents Arkansas.

These two are both in Statuary Hall.

And they're still in pretty good shape.

Would you say that being on this level, does it put pressure on you when somebody commissions you?

Sometimes, like with Buffett, it kind of did.

It kind of got to me a little bit because he's just such a big deal, you know, and with pop culture icons, it's like, even another level, because like Borlaug and Daisy Bates, I put everything I had into these pieces.

... and so they go about deliberating, like, who deserves this kind of honor, and this is where the, I think, the magic of the story comes together because I'm able to bring forward to readers, like, what these different figures in the civil rights movement were doing in 1963, where they had been, and the kind of sacrifices they have made.

And so there's a, there are the people that you would expect, like a Rosa Parks and Daisy Bates, who's the advocate for the Little Rock Nine, who integrate, uh, Little Rock Central High School in 1957, and then there are women who are a little lesser known, and I get to really spend time with their journeys into the movement.

And, you know, there's a lot of, um, e- ambivalent feelings about the March on Washington.

It was not everyone's-

Like, opera is so narrow and it's so niche and it's like not for everyone but like this is what she but she understood like the power of what meant for black women to be in this and I just like it became this kind of like surprise um source of enjoyment to really kind of immerse myself in all of this yeah

yeah there is it's it was fascinating how many of the women even like Daisy Bates like didn't have children, especially in the time that they were so heavily involved in civil rights too.

And I think it's cool how many of them, you don't have to be nurturing and super maternal to be a woman, to be fair, but it is fascinating how some of them were like, well, these are the people I'm fighting for.

So it was like, there was I'm not saying it to try to make them more palatable, but it was like they kind of found their children or their people that they wanted to take care of and fight for.

Certainly Prince Lee and Herbert Lee was not a name I had known either.

For me, Daisy Bates, I kind of knew who she was, like I sort of knew the name, but learning more about her, I really loved her.

I really love learning about her.

And to your point, she was one I started, I started Googling like, oh, there must be a whole biography.

Like there must be a whole 300 page biography about her.

And there's not.

You know, Daisy Bates is, I think she's kind of like, I mean, I have no favorites, right? They're all so special in my eye.

But there's something about her that was so fun to write about because Daisy Bates in many ways was a fabulist about her own life.

Certainly Prince Lee and Herbert Lee was not a name I had known either.

For me, Daisy Bates, I kind of knew who she was, like I sort of knew the name, but learning more about her, I really loved her.

I really love learning about her.

And to your point, she was one I started, I started Googling like, oh, there must be a whole biography.

Like there must be a whole 300 page biography about her.

And there's not.

You know, Daisy Bates is, I think she's kind of like, I mean, I have no favorites, right? They're all so special in my eye.

But there's something about her that was so fun to write about because Daisy Bates in many ways was a fabulist about her own life.

Certainly Prince Lee and Herbert Lee was not a name I had known either.

For me, Daisy Bates, I kind of knew who she was, like I sort of knew the name, but learning more about her, I really loved her.

I really love learning about her.

And to your point, she was one I started, I started Googling like, oh, there must be a whole biography.

Like there must be a whole 300 page biography about her.

And there's not.

You know, Daisy Bates is, I think she's kind of like, I mean, I have no favorites, right? They're all so special in my eye.

But there's something about her that was so fun to write about because Daisy Bates in many ways was a fabulist about her own life.

But there is no class photo of the black women who helped organize the march, performed on its main stage, or were honored during its tribute to black women fighters for freedom.

In How Bright the Path Grows, the untold story of the women who made the march on Washington by Dr. Marcia Chatelain weaves a gleaming group portrait of these singular women, Among this cohort were several household names, vaudeville icon Josephine Baker, civil rights activist Rosa Parks, gospel legend Mahalia Jackson, and Daisy Bates, champion of the Little Rock Nine.

But many were relative unknowns, including Eva Jesse, the choir director who designed the day's musical program, and Anna Hedgman, the coordinator who pushed in the 11th Hour for a tribute to black women's work.

How Bright the Path Grows is a scintillating group biography, rendering the lives of black women visionaries, some famous, others soon to be, in this novelistic detail like never seen before.