
  My historical context is The Help a 2009 novel by American author Kathryn Stockett. The story is about black maids working in white households in Jackson, Mississippi during the early nineteen fifties and nineteen sixties.  This book reflects the time period and explains the race issues and the unfair treatment of African American people that went on in the nineteen sixties United States. This bestseller is about a southern college girl that comes home from The University of Mississippi determined to become a New York City writer. Elaine Stein, a woman who is high up in the writing world wants to see what Skeeter can really write about before she gives her a high-end job in New York City. She tells Skeeter, “Write about what disturbs you; particularly if it seems to bother no one else.” (Stockett, 8). Skeeter takes this to heart and starts to write about what really bothers her, the race issues in Mississippi and in the United States for that matter. But ends up turning her friends' lives and the small Mississippi town, she grew up in, upside down trying to interview the African American maids, which is against the deep southern ways.  Aibileen, Skeeter’s (main character) housekeeper’s best friend, is the first to open up about what is it like to work in Mississippi as the hired help. With Skeeter's life-long friendships and family relationships hanging in the balance, she and Aibileen continue to conspire and soon more and more African American maids come forward to tell their stories about what it is really like to work as an African American maid in The South. By looking at the racial issues in the novel, The Help aids us as a society to understand why racial issues are so important and how the laws affect the lives of African American people in the South during the sixties.  

       The novel The Help depicts how the women in society are treated in the homes they work for, what they are paid and what life is really like for the women outside of their job. One of the main parts in this book that really stuck out to me was the scenes when the African American maids had to use a segregated bathroom in the white homes they were working for. The details from the book that I wanted to focus on were the discrimination of African Americans and how they were treated in society via the laws and regulations. I believe this book opens many doors of opportunity for research on many different topics from this time period in our history and shows us how the laws affected African American people everyday. 

        Throughout the South, African American men and women were forced to be separate from white people in everyday society. There were segregated schools, workplaces, restaurants, bathrooms, and more. The novel The Help depicts the segregation laws by telling us about how the African American maids were forced to sit in the back of the bus and were asked to get off most of the time, a perfect example how the laws of Mississippi effected the African American people. In the book, there is a family of white people who all have African American maids and the neighborhood where they work had decided to create an initiative that made every white house have a separate bathroom for the African-American help. A quote by one of the white women of the town says: "A bill that requires every white home to have a separate bathroom for the colored help.”(Stockett.32). This initiative is just another example of segregation in the South. These are examples of Jim Crow laws which were state and local laws enforcing racial segregation in the Southern United States. Jim Crow laws started after the Reconstruction period and were enforced until 1965. In the novel the main character, Skeeter, reads about these laws to further understand them and this also aids her in her writing the book “The Help.” Some of the laws included “Prohibited teaching white and black children in the same school”(Grade, Third, and Segregation History.) Abstract laws like this one made it hard for the African Americans to function in everyday society.

         My research with the Bringing History home article provides me with information about the Jim Crow laws and what they entailed. Because these laws are from Mississippi, gives me and idea of what it was like for the African American people in the South. This research doesn't change my perspective on the bestseller The Help, in fact, it furthers my education on the topic. I believe in order to fully understand the book the reader needs to have an understanding of life for African American people during this time period. The novel The Help is a good historical insight into what it was like to work as a maid in Jackson, Mississippi in the nineteen sixties.

       Along with the Jim Crow laws being so serious in the nineteen sixties, what happened to African American people when they didn't abide by these abstract laws was even worse. In The Help Aibileen mentions to Skeeter “my cousin Shinelle in Cauter County? They burn up her car cause she went down to the voting station, if I do this I might as well set my own house on fire” (Stockett.1).  These terrible offenses were usually done by people or groups that were against African Americans integrating into a white society. These groups lead with fear and violence to try and get what they wanted out of the society they were living in. An example of this is a group known as the Klu Klux Klan or the KKK. “Started back in the eighteen sixties  this group was mostly in the southern states around where our novel takes place. A group based off the old clan patrol, their focus was to intimidate and regulate the people they were against” (Klu Klux Klan) This group went out at night to terrorize African Americans in the towns, in the nineteen sixties the KKK wasn't as prevalent but there were similar groups that did the same things as the Klu Klux Klan(Klan Shoots Women). This research doesn't change my perspective on the book The Help it enhances my understanding of the novel.

        In a newspaper article titled “Klan Shoots Women” four African-American women were leaving a local restaurant in Chattanooga, Tennessee and were shot by three Klu Klux Klan members when the African American women hadn’t done anything wrong.  This is an example of what everyday life was like for African American people during the nineteen sixties. African Americans had to live in constant fear of losing their lives to the Klu Klux Klan and other types of violent groups. In the book The Help does depict what life was like for African-Americans during this time period and has given me a better outlook in understanding civil rights during the nineteen sixties and how the abstract laws that were made affected the African American people. The historical information provided by the book, shapes my reading and interpretation in a positive light, giving me and the others who read it a better understanding of why racial issues are so important and how the laws affected the lives of African American people, thus changing the way our country treats African American people. 
