Tyler Perry, Kerry Washington talkie

On December 27, 2024By Littum

No more overlooked.

The true story of the 855 black women in the Women’s Army Corps during World War II – the only all-black women’s army corps unit abroad during the war – get the credit it deserves in “The six triple eight.”

Kerry Washington and filmmaker Tyler Perry join forces for the film (streaming Friday on Netflix) to shine a light on America’s unsung heroes.

May. Charity Adams (played by Washington) and the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion were tasked with the mammoth “morale” mission of sorting through a three-year backlog of undelivered mail, routing 17 million pieces to and from soldiers and their families.

Although Adams was a stoic leader of her soldiers, the women of the 6888th “really loved her. They admired her,” says Washington, 47, who worked with Perry on 2010’s “For Colored Girls.”

“She was stern and strict and had very high expectations,” says the actress, but “did it with a level of love and compassion… Even though she expected a lot from them, it’s because she wanted a lot for them.”

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When writer/director Perry, 55, received a “sizzling wheel” pitch from producer Nicole Avant (daughter of the late “Black Godfather” of music Clarence Avant and wife Jacqueline), he was surprised never to have heard of the women’s heroism.

“You’re kidding me, right? There’s no way there were 855 black women in Europe during World War II. And she’s like, ‘No, it’s a true story.'” So I just started getting my hands on so much information” as possible, Perry says, including one article by Kevin M. Hymelwho became the film’s historian.

Despite widespread misogyny, the women cleared the backlog in a record three months while stationed in England, and did so again in France.

The film focuses on the exhausting, centuries-long mode of resilience black women have been forced to operate within: turning the other cheek, standing strong against generational hatred, being twice as good at receiving half as much (and with fewer resources to cope with it) happen).

“Progress is slow and it’s being pushed uphill,” says Perry. “These women didn’t have the same kind of racism that we have. We have laws to help us fight. These women didn’t even have the right to vote.”

The Netflix film also marks both Perry and Washington’s first time leading a war film (she had a supporting role in Spike Lee’s “Miracle at St. Anna”). Adams “wrote a really great memoir that I read a few times, devoured,” Washington says.

“I talked to people who knew her and loved her and worked with her and watched archive footage and listened to old interviews and got photographs. I mean, I just tried to absorb as much as I could about her.”

Working together again involved a bit of a learning curve (Washington “had to watch how fast I shoot,” Perry says), but it produced “powerful” moments on set.

“I really wanted to — pardon the pun — get in the trenches with him and help make it happen and help him fulfill his vision for it,” Washington says.

During Washington’s poignant monologue in the second half of the film, Perry says, “We had our military coordinators in the back watching the monitor. And I heard one of them: She was wailing. She couldn’t control herself … wondering what had just happened.”

The film’s prominent entry point is Lena Derriecott King (Ebony Obsidian), one of the last surviving members of the battalion, who died in January at the age of 100. Perry “didn’t know what to expect” when they met before filming.

“This woman walks in with her hair done, her makeup done, and she sits across from me (and says), ‘Hi, I’m Lena Derriecott,'” Perry recalls, adding that she “still went out dancing, still driving until maybe eight or nine months before she died.”

“Her memory, her recall, was so fascinating that I went to the historian and asked him if what she had shared with me was factual. He said, ‘Absolutely, she is right about everything she said,'” says Perry.

As King, Obsidian rounds out a cast of young Black actresses (Sarah Jeffery, Pepi Sonuga, Milauna Jackson, Moriah Brown and Shanice Shantay) who benefited from Washington’s mentorship both on and off screen.

During a set shutdown due to a thunderstorm, “we were all kind of sitting around with nothing to do. And that never happens on a Tyler Perry set,” Washington recalls. So actress and choreographer Debbie Allen was inspired to gather the cast to “ask anything” and “just make the most of this time.”

“I also got to ask Debbie my questions. But it was really fun to create that space with the girls and to connect and bond and go to another layer of intimacy,” says Washington.

The film also marks Perry’s first time directing longtime friend Oprah Winfrey, who stars as civil rights leader and FDR advisor Mary McLeod Bethune alongside Sam Waterston’s President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Susan Sarandon’s Eleanor Roosevelt.

Winfrey is “not a Madea girl,” so Perry waited for the perfect opportunity for her media mogul. “She hit it off,” he says. “She was like any other superstar, professional actor who showed up at that level of, ‘I’m going to do my best for the project.'”

Winfrey, Washington and Perry hit the 2024 campaign trail with Vice President Kamala Harris at the Democratic National Convention and in Georgiarespectively That the film’s release follows Harris’ defeat of President-elect Donald Trump is not lost on them.

Washington recalled that King watched the film before his death.

“She laughed and she greeted the screen and she said, ‘Thank you for letting the world know that black women contributed,'” says the actress. “Black women have contributed to our democracy and the protection of our democracy for so long. You can see in the film that they are standing up for this country at a time when the country didn’t always stand up for them.”

This moment in time “affirms the importance of black women and black women in our society,” Perry says. “It’s about ‘the power of collective strength and how much we can change the world.’