The collection consists of twelve boxes of correspondence and other documents, photographs, audio cassettes, and film. The files include correspondence resulting from her work and that of her husband, L.C. Bates, with the NAACP between 1957 and 1974. Significant correspondents include Harry Ashmore, Dale Bumpers, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, Orval Faubus, and Roy Wilkins. An index of correspondents is located at the end of this finding aid. Other materials in the collection include honors and awards received by Mr. and Mrs. Bates, records of Mrs. Bates’s work with the OEO Self-Help Project at Mitchellville, Arkansas, and a considerable file of newspaper clippings. The collection also contains audio-visual materials, including recordings of interviews, speeches, and radio and television broadcasts featuring Mrs. Bates, members of the Little Rock Nine and their parents, Orval Faubus, and others, regarding Little Rock school desegregation. More than four hundred photographs provide visual documentation of events in Mrs. Bates’s career, and include pictures of the Little Rock Nine, whose advisor she was when they enrolled in Central High School.