November 23, 2024 - November 29, 2024 The Afro-American A5 THE BLACKwww.afro.com MEDIA AUTHORITY • AFRO.COM $2.00 $1.00
Volume 133 No. 17
Volume 123 No. 20–22
NOVEMBER 23, 2024 - NOVEMBER 29, 2024
AFRO Photos/Dr. Deborah Bailey
Tyler Perry’s Netflix film, “The Six Triple Eight” will be available to the general public on Dec. 20 via Netflix. On Nov. 20 the National Museum of African American History and Culture hosted a screening that drew elected officials and other leaders such as a retired U.S. Army Master Sergeant Elizabeth Helms Frazier (left), U.S. Army historian Kevin Hymel and AFRO Publisher and CEO Dr. Frances “Toni” Draper. A packed audience gathered to watch the movie and hear remarks from Perry (far right) and other members of the cast.
Smithsonian honors women of the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion with screening of upcoming film By Deborah Bailey AFRO Contributing Editor
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The women of the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion probably never imagined seeing their life stories on the screen. After all, they were just hard-working women from all walks of life. They were the women willing to trade their best Sunday dresses for uniforms and put their lives on the line for their country. Each lady was more than up for the task: more than 17 million pieces of mail needed to be cleared, to restore lines of communication and boost morale. The women had six months to do their job– they did it in three. In fact, they were so good, when the war ended they were asked to replicate their success in Rouen, France. And again, they did six months of work in roughly 90 days, working in shifts around the clock.
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Now, internationally known director Tyler Perry and other celebrities are determined to tell their story. The National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) hosted the international premier of “The Six Triple Eight” on Nov. 20, exactly one month before the film’s release to the general public. “It’s my great honor to tell the story and celebrate these women,” Perry said. He spoke about exploring the legacy of Lt. Charity Adams Earley, the 6888th Battalion leader, who ended WWII as the highest ranking Black woman in the U.S. Army. Perry told those present about a moment he experienced while sitting in his dressing room. “I get a knock on the door, and it’s
one of the transportation guys...he said ‘I want to show you something.’ We opened the door, and there’s a trunk from 1944 from the war. And we look at the side of it and it says, ‘Charity Adams.’ We opened it up and her uniform, some things from our garden– two or three branches– all these things are in the letters, things that she had written out.” “I feel like all of these women– their souls, their spirits– were rallying around us to tell the story,” said Perry to the audience members present. Perry noted how many of the women returned home and packed away their former selves. “They all came home and settled back into their lives because it was taboo for a woman to be in the Army. This is before the army was segre-
gated in 1948,” he said. Now, years later, the story of the brave women of the 6888th is being put on the world stage. He was joined by cast members Kerry Washington and Ebony Obsidian, who participated in a panel after the screening to talk about their experiences in portraying the real life women of the 6888th Battalion. While some may have been unfamiliar with the story, one guest, U.S. Army Colonel Travis Hill, said his line of work afforded him the opportunity to learn about women in the past. “I am in human resources,” he told the AFRO at the screening. “There are a lot of postal organizations in the Army, so we definitely know and honor this unit that served in World War II.”
Members of Congress, family members of the women in the 6888th Battalion and military personnel, such as Elizabeth Helms Frazier, a retired master sergeant in the U.S. Army (E8) were among the special guests for the screening. Frazier said that even though the women are seen as heroes today, in the 1940s, there was less fanfare. “These women were like many veterans of World War II, and veterans in general. They just did what they were told to do and came home. That part of their lives was done,” said Frazier. Frazier said she first learned about the 6888 Battalion as an enlisted soldier, seeing a small picture of the regiment from time to time during her Continued on A3
In the classroom: How Maryland educators are teaching Thanksgiving lessons to the next generation By DaQuan Lawrence AFRO International Writer DLawrence@afro.com On Nov. 28 the Thanksgiving holiday will arrive, complete with family gatherings, community events and opportunities to give back and be grateful. While conversations about the origin of Thanksgiving and the purpose of the holiday remain suspended between myth and fact-based reality, educators in the state of Maryland grapple each year with how the holiday is addressed in the educational setting. According to Brittanica, “Thanksgiving is modeled on a 1621 harvest feast shared by the English colonists (Pilgrims) of Plymouth and the Wampanoag people.” While millions of American citizens use the holiday as the opener to a season of gratitude, for others the holiday is overshadowed by the death and destruction experienced by Native Americans
at the hands of Europeans as colonization spread. According to Dr. Kelli Mosteller, who serves as Citizen Potawatomi Nation’s Cultural Heritage Center director, the holiday “disregards [centuries of brutality] against Native Americans and chooses to take…one tiny snapshot. The world of social media puts pretty filters on it so that it doesn’t look the way it truly did.” In real life, the situation was anything but a celebration. According to Holocaust Museum Houston, “when European settlers arrived in the Americas, historians estimate there were over 10 million Native Americans living there. By 1900, their estimated population was under 300,000. Native Americans were subjected to many different forms of violence, all with the intention of destroying the community.” Information released by the museum states that “in the late 1800s, blankets from
Unsplash/ Sam Bayle
Thanksgiving is a holiday with roots dating back to 1621. And while many see the day as a time to be grateful, others see it as a painful reminder of what happened to the Native Americans who were driven from their land and massacred by the millions. smallpox patients were distributed to Native Americans in order to spread disease. There were several wars, and violence was encouraged; for example, European settlers were paid for each Penobscot person they killed.” Then came more atrocities. According to the museum, “In the 19th century,
4,000 Cherokee people died on the Trail of Tears, a forced march from the southern U.S. to Oklahoma.” The Citizen Potawatomi Nation is the federally recognized government of the Indigenous population and represents over 38,000 tribal members. Some members of society
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believe the factual history behind the holiday provides ample reasons for citizens to not celebrate what is billed to the American public as a time to be thankful. To many Native Americans, the holiday ignores over 400 years of mayhem against Indigenous people and maintains the Continued on A3