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Biography/History:
Gladys Noel Bates was born March 26, 1920, in McComb, Pike County, Mississippi, the fourth of five children of Andrew Jackson and Susan Nallie Noel. Andrew Jackson Noel was a railway postal clerk who traveled extensively throughout the country. In 1924, he chose Jackson, Hinds County, Mississippi, as a permanent home for his family. He became very active in the Jackson chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).
Gladys Noel completed her elementary education in the public schools of Jackson, Mississippi, and attended Alcorn Agricultural and Mechanical High School in Lorman, Claiborne County, Mississippi. Alcorn was the only black school in the area that offered a curriculum in business administration, a course of study her father had wished for her to follow. In September 1938, she married John Milton Bates of West Virginia, a football coach at Alcorn. They had two children, Katherine Sue Bates Gavin and John Milton Bates, Jr.
After their marriage, John and Gladys Bates spent one year in West Virginia, then returned to Mississippi when John Bates took a job at Lanier High School in Jackson. Gladys Bates enrolled at Tougaloo College, Tougaloo, Madison County, Mississippi, and received her bachelor’s degree from that school in 1942. The couple settled in Jackson, Mississippi, with John Bates teaching vocational courses at Lanier High School and Gladys Bates teaching science at the Smith Robertson Junior High School. They became active in many community organizations, particularly the Voters League, the Jackson chapter of the NAACP, the Jackson Teachers Association and the Mississippi Teachers Association. In 1947 the Mississippi Teachers Association invited Thurgood Marshall, chief counsel for the NAACP, to Jackson, Mississippi, to discuss the problems of equalization of teachers’ pay. Marshall advised the Mississippi teachers to secure the necessary funds to pursue legal action to obtain equal pay for black and white teachers. Gladys Bates had paid close attention to the issue of equalization of teacher’s pay.
On March 4, 1948, Gladys Noel Bates filed suit in the United States District Court charging that the Jackson Municipal Separate School District had denied her and other black teachers’ and administrators’ salaries equal to those of whites with similar education and experience. Mrs. Bates and her husband were immediately fired for this action. She had been encouraged to pursue this course of action by her father, and NAACP Legal Defense Fund attorneys, Constance Baker Motley and Robert Carter represented her, while James A. Burns of Meridian, Lauderdale County, Mississippi, served as her local attorney.
The case lasted for nearly three years before a final judgment was made. In order to remove the possibility that the case be declared moot as a result of Mrs. Bates’ non-teacher status, Richard Jess Brown, a teacher at Lanier High School, filed a motion as an intervener in May 1949. He too was fired at the end of the 1949 school year. Gladys Bates and Jess Brown lost their case when Judge Sidney Mize ruled that they had not exhausted all of the administrative remedies before bringing the case to court. Judge Mize’s decision was upheld on appeal to the United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit. The United States Supreme Court refused to hear the case.
John and Gladys Bates found life difficult as the case was winding its way through the courts. Gladys Bates initially found work as a part-time secretary for Ruby Stutts Lyells at the Young Women’s Christian Association. Her husband found work in a box factory. After the intervention of Robert Carter, the NAACP attorney, Gladys Bates was employed at the Mississippi Teachers Association as the assistant executive secretary and the editor of the Mississippi Educational Journal. John Bates was hired as the dean of Campbell College in Jackson, Mississippi. During this same period, Gladys Bates earned her master’s degree from West Virginia University in Morgantown, West Virginia.
In 1960, John and Gladys Bates moved to Denver, Colorado, where her brothers had established a medical clinic. The Bateses were hired as teachers in the Denver school system. Mrs. Bates became very active in her profession; she developed programs for increased parental involvement in the schools, she assisted in writing an African American history syllabus, and she provided leadership in the establishment of a Human Rights Commission in the local and state education associations. She retired from education in 1979.
Gladys Noel Bates has continued working in many different areas since her retirement. She has served as a trustee for Tougaloo College, Tougaloo, Mississippi, and as the President of the Tougaloo College Alumni Association. She was also co-chairperson of the Denver Links Community Service Project, a service for unwed mothers, and she has been a strong supporter of her community, taking an active part in the war on drugs and urban blight. Mrs. Bates continues to live in Denver, Colorado.
Scope and Content:
This collection consists of scrapbooks, a photograph, news clippings, a transcript of an oral history interview, a court brief from the United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit, and film.
Two different individuals compiled the scrapbooks. The first one contains materials collected by Mrs. Bates during the period when her lawsuit was started. Included among the materials are official letters between her and school officials, congratulatory letters, and correspondence regarding her work with the Mississippi Teachers Association. Newsclippings are interspersed with the letters. The second scrapbook contains correspondence and materials collected by Gladys Bates’s father, Andrew Jackson Noel. The correspondence is addressed to him in his capacity as an officer of the Jackson Branch of the NAACP, with the majority being from James A. Burns of Meridian, Mississippi. There are also a number of letters from Robert Carter of the Legal Defense Fund of the NAACP. The correspondence in the second scrapbook is arranged as a chronological record of the legal case from the first filing to the final decision of the United States Supreme Court.
The photograph was taken in February 1979 in Denver, Colorado, at the home of Gladys and John Bates at a gathering of the Tougaloo Alumni. Shown in the photograph are: Miss Rosa V. Brown, Mrs. Annie E. Harris, Mrs. Gladys Noel Bates, Dr. Rosa Page Welch, and Mr. John Bates.
The newsclippings are a scattered group of eight items dated 1943-1949, and 1981. The early ones are mostly from Mississippi newspapers on the subject of equalization of teacher pay while the 1981 clipping records a visit by Mrs. Bates to Jackson during which she was interviewed by the Jackson Advocate.
The oral history interview was conducted by Catherine Jannik of the University of Southern Mississippi as a part of its Civil Rights Oral History Program. Jannik interviewed Mrs. Bates at her home in Denver, Colorado, in June 1996. The oral history staff transcribed the interview and a copy was placed with the collection.
The court brief is from the case of Gladys Noel Bates and R. Jess Brown, Appellants v. John C. Batte, et. al. It covers the case as it was appealed in 1950 to the Fifth Circuit Court in New Orleans.
The filmed discussion of salary equalization was recorded at Jackson State University, Jackson, Mississippi, in 1981. The participants in the discussion were Mrs. Bates, Mr. N. R. Burger, Mr. Wayne F. Calbert, and Mr. A. L. Johnson. All of the men had been presidents of the Mississippi Teachers Association at various times.
Series Identification:
Box 1
Box 2
Box 3, folder 1
Box 1, folder 1
Box 3, folder 2
Box 3, folder 3
Box 3, folder 4
Box 4: Videocassettes (restricted)
Box 5: VHS