LITTLE ROCK, Ark. – Early Sunday morning, the Arkansas Martin Luther King Jr. Commission traveled to Washington DC for its 2024 Dream Keepers Anti-bullying Tour and to honor a new statue of Daisy Bates representing Arkansas that will be placed at the U.S. Capitol.

Bates was the well-known mentor of the Little Rock Nine while they desegregated Central High School.

The commission at Bates’ home In Little Rock on their way to DC where a student among a handful traveling with the commission said she was excited to learn the history.

“We have an event on Tuesday, the Anti-bullying campaign where we are taking anti-bullying to the nation’s capital and also the installation ceremony of the Daisy Bates statue in the Statuary hall,” Tiffany Pettus, Historian for the commission said.

The commission also took along students from Pine Bluff, Little Rock, and Stuttgart School District.

Takirah Rodgers, who is a senior at Pine Bluff high school, says she’s looking forward to learning about the steps Bates and others took throughout history.

“I’m very happy and excited to be at her home where some stuff originally started, where Martin Luther King took his steps at and where the Little Rock Nine took their steps at,” Rodgers said. 

Pettus says she hopes every student learns something.

“The more assets we build in them, the more they will be exposed to positive experiences that will inspire them to do great things,” Pettus said.

Rodgers says she’s excited for everything that is to come. 

“You would never think you would have the opportunity to see something like this where people are actually excited and to learn about things of this nature,” Rodgers said.

All week the commission has events planned for the tour. The 7 ft 6-inch bronze sculpture of Bates will be unveiled Wednesday, May 8.