In English 110, Isabella chose to explore story behind the story of The Help. Her research took her on a path to explore Mississippi’s Jim Crow laws in the 1960s. On the screen, she measured how people of different races were portrayed. She identified how racial stereotypes were reinforced or undermined. Her writing reflects upon how far we have come as a society and/or how much work we still have ahead of us.
The Civil Rights Movement: The Help Must Change
In the film The Help, Aibileen is a wise and weathered black maid who has raised seven white children. She works for Elizabeth Leefolt and adores toddler Mae Mobley Leefolt, even though she knows that the loving relationship could hurt them both. Aibileen has changed since her son's death, and she finds that she cannot accept the way things are so easily now. The book she writes with Skeeter andthe other maids empowers her to stand up for injustices. She teaches the children she raises that the color of skin does not matter but love and kindness do but she often feels that the message is countered by the racism in Jackson. Aibileen realizes she has more to offer in life than being a maid and finding the courage to try something new. When talking to Skeeter, she at one point says, "I thought I might write my stories down or read 'em to you. Ain't no different in writin' down my prayers." Her identity is determined by her place in society as a maid, but she embraces a central role in the writing project with Skeeter and finds a new identity as a writer, too. Aibileen realizes the danger that could result from her decisions, but she embraces the risk and relies on her faith for guidance. In the end, Aibileen discovers her own courage and talents, which leads her to leave her job as a maid and accept an undetermined path that will lead to more independence.The Help is about African Americans working in white households where they face racial backlash. The early 1960s were turbulent times for Mississippi. Society was strictly segregated along racial lines, and the social, political, and economic rights of blacks were suppressed through violence. Although slavery had ended 100 years earlier, African Americans in Mississippi had been kept in subjugation for decades through a system known as "Jim Crow." This film shows the discriminatory policies that African Americans had the worst jobs, lowest pay, poorest schools, and harshest living conditions.
The 1960s in Jackson, Mississippi, marked the peak of injustice in the Jim Crow South and on the brink of the Civil Rights Movement. During the 1960's, the era was covered in legal segregation and economic inequalities,which limited black women's employment opportunities. Up to 90 percent of working black women in the South labored as domestic servants in white homes. During this time, the Ku Klux Klan also known as the KKK were starting to form. These groups were made up of white men, mostly middle and upper class, and formed in cities and small towns throughout the South in the late 1950s and early 1960s. They wanted to spread and share Klan's ideology and worked to preserve the system of segregation. White supremacist politicians, police, and business leaders worked together to keep African Americans "in their place." People who were the color black that lived in Mississippi who challenged the system were arrested and jailed, punished by white employers, or attacked by the terrorist group Ku Klux Klan. Some were even killed for trying too vote or improve their lives.
- To read Isabella's complete Film History Research Paper, please click on the following link: The Help.
- To learn more about Jim Crow, please click on the video below:
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In this first section of Friends of the Earth,
students take the time to introduce themselves through their reading.
Instead of the brief mention of their hobbies and pets, they reflect on
a memorable literary experience. You might not judge a book by its cover, but here we learn
what is often hidden inside of others.
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