The Help, Black Domestics In The 1960s

Kathryn Stockett’s book, "The Help" is a best seller and a movie was recently made from it. Some blacks would have liked such a book to have been written by a black person but blacks and whites say they like the book and the movie. It’s the story of black domestics in the 1960s and their white employers. Stockett, herself was raised by a black nanny during that time in Mississippi. The 1960s were the times of upheaval and civil right marches. Martin Luther King was in the forefront, and blacks and whites were marching in the streets for civil liberties. Relationships were complicated between the black domestics and white employers of the 1960s, as they were in earlier times, and might still be today. Many domestics were loved by the families they worked for and many found their employers mean minded. Some black domestics were treated as one of the family, taken care of when they were sick and helped in financial situations. Some were not. The book “The Help” written by Kathryn Stockett of Atlanta is a best seller, and was recently made into a movie. Julian Bond, professor of history at the University of Virginia and American University and civil rights leader said, “The NAACP had a screening of “The Help” at the national convention. It was a big hit. In the movie there were examples of people who became friends and cared about each other. Then there were examples of employers being very mean.” Bond went on to say that after the screening people were saying, My grandmother was a maid, or my grandfather was in service and people should share these stories. There was also a book published in 1956 called “Like One of the Family” about a black maid who worked for a white family. The title was tongue in cheek because this maid certainly wasn’t treated like one of the family. Even if a white family says they treat a domestic like family, you have to wonder if it’s true. Mattye Sanders said, my mother worked as a maid in the 50s and 60s. In our community almost every woman on our street worked as a maid. My mother had to work hard and was always tired. It upset me that she called the people she worked for “Miss” and “Mr” because they were usually younger than she was and it seemed to me disrespectful. Sanders said her mother told her that once a piece of clothing was missing and her employer accused her of taking it. They didn’t pay her that week. Sanders said that her mother often told her she was doing this so her daughter wouldn’t have to. Sanders got her degree in economics and her husband is a government consultant. even though her mother is dead, she did get to see her daughter succeed before she passed away. Beverly Sheftall, director of the Women’s Research and Resource Center at Spelman college,says she has no difficulty with a white woman taking this on, but she feels the book was written from a white prospective and a black woman might have had a more critical view. Sheftall says it’s a subservient relationship whether the treatment is humane or not. So it has to be seen in the relationship of Jim Crow in which the black woman had no rights. They were paid low wages,sometimes treated badly by the women of the house, and exploited by male employers for sexual favors. These women suffered and sacrificed for their children to have a better future.