Born on January 11, 1925 in Grand Prairie, Arkansas, Betty Bumpers was a white woman who would become more known for her advocacy of childhood immunization and world peace than her marriage to Arkansas Governor and U.S. Senator Dale Bumpers. Following a college career that saw her study at Iowa State Colege and the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts, she married Dale Bumpers, who was at that time attending law school at Northwestern University in nearby Evanston. Following her husband's graduation, Bumpers moved to Charleston, Arkansas, where she taught in the local school district and both she and her husband would be instrumental in desegregating.

Upon Dale Bumpers' election as Governor, Betty Bumpers launched a statewide immunization program in Arkansas named "Every Child by '74". The programs was a major success, boosting Arkansas' childhood immunization rates from one of the lowest in the country to one of the highest and became a model for national immunization efforts. In the 1980s, while living in Washington, D.C. as her husband had been elected U.S. Senator for Arkansas, Betty also became a major figure in the Peace Links organization, which was designed to build personal relationships between American and Russian women in order to help build a peace between the United States and the Soviet Union.

Betty Bumpers passed away in Little Rock on November 23, 2018.