MovieChat Forums > The Help (2011) Discussion > My grandma had a black maid in the 50s i...

My grandma had a black maid in the 50s in the south


And treated her well.

Not everyone in the south hated black people back then. The reality of the time was that black women were often grateful to work as maids and most of their employers treated them well.

My mom used to tell me stories about growing up as a child. Some were about the maid they had. Her name was Pearl. This was in Ft Lauderdale (when that area of Florida was still fairly southern). While that area wasn't the deep south back then, the color lines were somewhat drawn (even in the Florida beach town where I grew up, there was a colored beach up until the late 60s/early 70s), and black maids often worked in white houses.

I will say that one of the stories my mom told about Pearl were the few times she had to stay late at work for some reason, and my grandma had to drive her home because the bus didn't run late. On occasion, my mom would ride along and she said that the area of town where the blacks lived, she was appalled at the conditions (shacks, shanties....just poor overall). My mom grew up with money so she probably didn't see poverty much. They treated her pretty well, from what my mom said.

I am sure that there were some poorly treated black maids, but for those from outside the south, not all southerners treated/treat black people poorly.

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Pointless thread as the movie had characters like your grandma, I hope you still enjoyed the movie despite probably your shouts at the screen for it not being like "it really was in real life".

In the end, the movie was about the mistreated ones.


Enough is enough! I have had it with these monkey fighting snakes on this Monday thru Friday plane!

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OP, why was your grandmother so lazy?

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Just a caveat. Treated "well" was a very relative back then. You have those that claim slavery was a good thing. It's kind of like saying that those in the prison system should be greatful to have free room and board

I am the Alpha and the Omoxus. The Omoxus and the Omega

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My mother had one. So did a friend of mine. My friend was featured on 20/20 reuniting with her childhood maid. It was a touching scene. They both treated their maids like family. My mother said her maid was more like a nanny and cared for her and her siblings like a mother would.

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My mother also talked about the blacks living on the other side of town. This was in Jackson, MS where The Help took place. She called the area the blacks lived "across the train tracks". The homes were much smaller, dirt rodes and broken down.

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How would You know what Black maids thought? Most of them were probably grateful to have a job because it was one of the only ones the could get at the time. The movie simply portrays the reality of what many African-Americans went through during that time period, if Your grandma didn't treat Her maid poorly then good for Her, but it was a reality and very active at the time in the south. Don't try to make it sound better, or sugar coat it. You make it sound like Your grandma was doing Her maid a favor by treating Her well, maids should have been treated well regardless, it's not a privilege, it's a right. The reasons the neighborhoods the black maids lived in were poor was because being a black maid wasn't exactly a high paying job, so they worked with what little income they had. If they had more then maybe they could live in a better place, but tell Me exactly what did your grandma do to treat Her maid well? besides drive Her home when the buses didn't run late.

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This sounds bad but my mom grew up on a farm with help as well. She said one of their jobs was to wash her hair and they would scrub so hard it would hurt so bad. My mom didn't realize that they were probably doing that out of anger because when I was a kid that is how she used to wash my hair because she believed that was normal. lol! They let them live in a house on their property but that is all I know. Hopefully they treated them nice. My mom and her family was the nicest people you could ever know and we were a liberal family and didn't believe in racism so I am assuming that came from a good place.

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