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The Help

STORY PREFACE

Freedom has never been free.

Medgar Evers
June 7, 1963

 

Trouble had started in Jackson, Mississippi long before Hilly Holbrook launched her "Home Help Sanitation Initiative."   Although both Hilly and her proposed law are fictional components of The Help, they could easily be real. 

Consider this.  When the "Civil Rights Bill" became law, in 1964, the owner of the Robert E. Lee Hotel - where key parts of The Help story take place - closed down his beautiful Jackson-based establishment just to keep-out black patrons. 

Flying a Confederate battle flag, Stewart Gammill, Jr. posted this sign:

CLOSED IN DESPAIR.  CIVIL RIGHTS BILL UNCONSTITUTIONAL. (Quoted in The Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission: Civil Rights and States' Rights, by Yasuhiro Katagiri, page 168.)

Two days later he declared that henceforth the hotel would be a private club, open only to members.  Why would he do such a thing?

 

VISUAL VOCABULARY BUILDER

For This Story

 

 

Author: Carole D. Bos, J.D.

 

Key to Color-Coded Links

Original Release Date:  August, 2011
Updated Monthly

 

Lesson Plan for This Story

 

To cite this story, using MLA Guidelines:

Bos, Carole D. "The Help" AwesomeStories.com. Date of access
       <http://www.awesomestories.com/flicks/help-the>.

IN OTHER WORDS: Author. Title of story. Name of web site. Date of access <URL>.