The story behind Netflix’s The Six Triple Eight

TThe women of the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion, the largest unit of black women serving overseas during World War II, certainly made their mark on the war effort—processing about 65,000 pieces of mail per year. shift. The approximately 850 officers and enlisted personnel were responsible for delivering mail from the home front to the soldiers fighting in the European theater from 1945 to 1946.

Now an operation that was completely behind the scenes is front-and-center in a major Hollywood production for the first time. Netflix movie The six triple eightout December 20 and directed by Tyler Perry, boasts a star-studded cast. Kerry Washington plays the battalion’s leader, Charity Adams, as she strives to prove that black service members deserve the same respect and opportunities as white service members. Sam Waterston plays President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, while Susan Sarandon plays First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt. And Oprah Winfrey plays Mary McLeod Bethune, the first black woman to head a federal agency, who briefed FDR on the issues that mattered to black Americans.

The six triple eight follows the story of Lena Derriecott King (Ebony Obsidian), a Philadelphia-area woman who joins the Army in hopes of becoming a nurse after her boyfriend is killed while serving overseas. King was a real person, as was her suitor, a man from her neighborhood named Abram. In the film, King’s mother, a restaurateur at a local synagogue, rejects the match, worried about the discrimination her black daughter might face for dating a white Jewish man. After Abram goes abroad, King writes him many letters that go unanswered – foreshadowing her later work with 6888 – until she learns that he is dead. In the film’s most dramatic scene, King’s colleagues find a letter Abram wrote to her that was never delivered, and Adams says the discovery made her realize why their work organizing the mail was so important.

Here’s what you need to know about the real women who inspired the film and their battalion’s great exploits.

What it was like to be in 6888

The women of 6888 had to overcome a lot of discrimination, despite boasting many achievements. A native of Columbia, SC, Adams graduated from high school as Valedictorian and was a member of the first officer class of the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC).

White women and black women trained together, but they could not sit next to each other on buses or share housing. The film shows black female soldiers donning gas masks in rooms filled with tear gas and climbing rope ladders as part of training, yet being asked to give up their seats in a theater. Those kinds of indignities were par for the course, according to an article about 6888 by military history writer Kevin M. Hymel, who inspired the film.

When Adams was deployed, she didn’t know she would be tasked with organizing mail until a sealed envelope was placed on her lap mid-flight. In the film, Bethune tells President Roosevelt that the troops trained by Adams are ready for the task.

The women of the 6888th Battalion went straight to work in a dark warehouse in Birmingham, England, that used to be a school. The film shows the 6888 women rushing to turn it into an office. Apparently, in real life, the warehouse was overrun by rats climbing over mail sacks, according to Maj. Gen. Mari K. Eders. The Girls Who Stepped Out of Line: Untold Stories of the Women Who Changed the Course of World War II.

“I know what this looks like, ladies,” Adams said, according to Eder’s book, “and I know what you’re probably thinking. But we’ve got a job to do, and we’re going to get it done. Now let’s organize .”

They had to deal with letters addressed to the soldier’s nicknames, not real names, like “Junior, US Army” or “Buster, US Army.” Care packages often fell apart in transit and the battalion was responsible for putting the contents back in.

“They clear the backlog faster than any civilian or military personnel who had been there before,” Lena S. Andrews, author of Valiant Women: The Extraordinary American Servicewomen Who Helped Win World War IItold TIME in 2023.

“By making sure all mail was delivered, she really helped keep up the morale of the troops in the European theater,” Matthew F. Delmont, author of Half American: The Epic Story of African Americans Fighting World War II at Home and Abroadtold TIME in 2022.

Eder says some of the 6,888 members found they had more freedom in England than in the US, where everything was separate. They befriended locals and some even went on dates with English men.

After the war

After organizing 17 million pieces of mail, the 6888 was sent to France, where they had six months to clear a two-year backlog of mail. 6888 did it in three months. Adams was promoted to lieutenant colonel, making her the highest-ranking black woman in the United States Army.

After the war, the 6888 did some work in Paris organizing civilian mail, and then the unit was deactivated in 1946. King stayed abroad for a bit, enrolling in design school in Leicester, England, and later lived in Las Vegas, Nevada for many years .

In 2022, the battalion was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal, the highest civilian honor awarded by the United States Congress. On one side of the medal is a portrait of Adams, and on the other is a large stack of letters and packages with the inscription “clearing the backlog”. In 2023, a US Army base named after Confederate General Robert E. Lee was renamed Fort Gregg-Adams in honor of 6888 Adams and Arthur Gregg, another pioneering African American in the Army.

The six triple eight director Tyler Perry was shown the King movie shortly before she died. She watched it from a hospital bed. In a video he posted on Instagram, King says, “Thank you for reminding the world of the contribution of the black woman.” King died on January 18, 2024 at the age of 100.

Two decades before the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the 6888th Battalion showed what black women were capable of. “What we had was a large group of adult Negro women who had been victims of racial bias in one way or another,” Adams wrote in her memoir. “This was an opportunity for us to stand together for a common cause.”