The Help

Today I went and saw The Help with my sister. The movie was very good.  For those who don’t know, it takes place in 1962 in Mississippi.  I think if you ask people what it is about,  they will tell you what they think it is, based on their life experiences.

Yet one of the interesting things for me was the audience I watched this movie with.

The crowd was mostly older Anglo Americans. My sister and I were the only women of color in the room, there was one other man.  So in addition to watching the movie, I was watching the audiences’ reaction to it. These people lived through it. They were on one side or the other.

This movie puts me in the right frame of mind for the week. I plan to attend the dedication of the Martin Luther King, Jr. National Memorial.  I was born in the middle of the sixties and missed many of the volatile moments of the Civil Rights Movement.  I believe my generation has benefited the most from the movement (heck, we even became President).

But I know that there is still so much more work to do. The Civil Rights Movement still has an African-American face on it. Dr King would agree that this movement is for the freedom of all people. No man is truly free if even one of us is stuck in a system that depreciates them.

Audiences around the country are laughing at the antics of people in The Help right now, and thinking we are so much better than that now. In forty years will our grandchildren look back and laugh at our antics in the way we treat immigrants and people from the Middle East?  I don’t know.

I look forward to this week. I will celebrate all the maids, butlers, shoe shines,  servants, cotton pickers…you get it. They made the way so that I could be whatever I wanted to be. Praise God.