The Help

This bestselling book is set in Jackson, Mississippi, in the early 1960's. "The help" refers to black maids who work for white families and how they are treated. It is a work of fiction but is supposedly historically accurate.

There were a lot of things in here that surprised me. I was born in Tennessee in the mid-60's and have unfortunately known some who look down on black people, but nothing like this book refers to. They are almost treated as less than human. Assuming this book is accurate, it seemed that, other than not being in the bondage of slavery, very little had changed in the 100 years since the Civil War. Did Martin Luther King make all the difference?

I don't know. I only know that I hope I have never possessed one shred of the arrogant spirit that is seen in many of the white characters in the book. I hope I never look down on anyone the way black people are looked down upon in this story. And I hope that the progress in racial relations that has been made since the 60's will continue. God made everyone and loves us all, and He commands us to do the same.

"There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus." Galatians 3:28

This book was interesting and captivating. Though the treatment of black people shocked me, the personalities of the characters and the relationships are very realistic. At times it is funny, at others sad. I found myself cheering the "good guys" on, wanting to see the mean ones go down in defeat. Though there is a bit of bad language, it is for the most part fairly clean. I would recommend this as a good read, both in an educational and an entertaining sense.