Black Women In The Movie The Helping

1960's Jackson, Mississipi was full of racial tension, as it was the starting point of the Civil Rights Movement. The social and political rights of African Americans were suppressed, and several systems were in place to keep it that way, despite the efforts of many for integration. During this period, violence against the blacks increased greatly, and, in 1964, the Ku Klux Klan attacked 119 African Americans in just one summer. A vast majority of the black community in Mississippi worked on farms, and very few went on to become businessmen, ministers, or even teachers. Those who did were faced with a very poor income, and were often given intentionally degrading tasks to complete. Life for black women was not much better, even if they were sheltered inside the homes of their employers. Black women who worked as

Despite this danger, many black women left their own children at a very early hour in order to care for those of their employers.
The Help (2011), directed by Tate Taylor, is a historical drama about the hardships of black women in Jackson, Mississippi during the 1960's. The movie begins when Eugenia "Skeeter" Phelan (Emma Stone) returns home from the University of Mississippi to find that her mother, Charlotte (Allison Janney) has fired her childhood nanny, a black woman named Constantine (Cicely Tyson). This event opens Skeeter's eyes to the attitudes and treatment of her white friends to their black domestic workers, and she decides to start her writing career by documenting their experiences. To aid her, Skeeter enlists the help of Aibileen Clark (Viola Davis) and Minny Jackson (Octavia