This Op-ed was written by Marlene McCurtis & Cathee Weiss,
producers of the Wednesdays In Mississippi Documentarty Film.
There been a lot of buzz recently about (the book and movie) The
Help – Is it “true”? Who is represented fairly? What’s good and
is not so good. Many question the actual merits of movie’s “feel
good” approach to race relations. As filmmakers this controversy
has confirmed our belief that we need more books, more films,
and most importantly more talk about what really happened in
Mississippi during this time of enormous change. Set in the
middle of the civil rights era in Mississippi, The Help depicts
the relationship between two groups of women-- middle class
white southern women and their black maids. At the end of the
day, it is a piece of fiction, one writer’s interpretation of
the complexity of racial relationships in the south. Yet, during
this same time period there were real-life black and white women
in Mississippi quietly, and some times not so quietly, working
hard to dismantle th