During World War II, the women serving in the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion, the largest contingent of black female soldiers to deploy in the war, made a splendid contribution to the effort, as they took care of approximately 65,000 dispatches per shift. The 850 officers and enlisted handled the process of moving the mail from the US to the troops stationed in the European zone between the years 1945 and 1946.
Meanwhile, for the very first time, the task that was completely unnoticed is placed in the spotlight in an A-List Hollywood movie. Tyler Perry will be starring in his Netflix release The Six Triple Eight alongside several prominent actors. Kerry Washington portrays. the battalion commander, Charity Adams, who attempts to demonstrate that Black Americans serving in the military have the same rights as white soldiers. Sam Waterston plays Franklin Delano Roosevelt while Suzan Sarandon plays his wife, Eleanor Roosevelt. Oprah Winfrey plays Mary McLeod Bethune, the first black woman to be head of a federal agency. where she explained to the President about Black Americans’ concerns.
The movie The Six Triple Eight revolves around Lena Derrickot King, who unwittingly joins the army in a bid to become a nurse in the aftermath of the untimely death of her boyfriend stationed overseas. However, Lena is a real person, and so is her childhood sweetheart Abram who lived in her neighborhood. In the movie, King’s mother is highly critical of Abram for being a white Jewish man and dating an African-American daughter, fearing that they would encounter racial discrimination. Following the tennis match, King starts sending him a plethora of letters, which ultimately go unanswered until she realizes that he had already passed away. This served as a foreboding of her attending the 6888 later. The most gripping part of the movie was when one of King’s coworkers picked up an undelivered letter meant for King, It was sent by Abram who had died earlier, which prompted Adams to speculate why her mail had been so heavily organized.
In this section, we will dive deeper into the major achievements of this particular battalion’s women.
The Women 6888 faced a lot of discrimination even though they consisted of high achievers, for example, Adams was born in Columbia, South Carolina graduated high school as a Valedictorian, and was a first officer of the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC) along with a full set of Being high achievers among them.
Women for Black Gas Aid trained all soldiers together and black women took gas up but there were restrictions on where they could be stationed. To show it, black women soldiers in the movie trained in rooms full of teargas while wearing gas masks and climbing rope ladders, and they were then told to surrender their seats in a theatre. There was other everyday disrespect as well, according to an article about the 6888 by military history writer Kevin M. Hymel which later grew into the film.
Adams was issued a mission concerning mail when a sealed envelope landed directly on her while she was on a flight. She vividly recalls Bethune discussing with President Roosevelt the training being conducted by the adamant soldiers.
The women of the 6888th division set up an unofficial mailbox in the leftover building in Birmingham, that had formally served as a school. The movie depicts the group as hastily converting the warehouse into an office while in real life, according to Major General Mari K. Eder’s, The Girls Who Stepped Out of Line, the warehouse was infested with rats that climbed the mail bags.
Adams during the meeting advised the women on what to expect, “I understand how sketchy this appears and the ideas you all could be having. But we have a task at hand keep joking around and let’s get us prepared to tackle the task.”
For example, package resolvers often include a soldier’s Canadian nickname such as ‘Buster’ or ‘Junior’ accompanied by “US Army”. Furthermore, packages often get dismantled while getting transported and that’s when local soldiers were required to refix them.
“They’ve handled more mail in three months than any civilians or military personnel had accomplished before, remarked Lena S.A, time magazine’s author of Valiant Women; The Incredible Female Service Members That Aided The US to Triumph In the Second World War.
one of the women in the 6888 said they had more freedom in England than they did in the US, where everything was segregated,” Eder says. They befriended residents and a few even went out on a few dates with English men.
After the war
Following the sorting of 17 million mail pieces, the unit was deployed to France with the target of clearing two years of undelivered mail within a period of 6 months. The task was accomplished by the unit in under three months. Adams was recognized for her efforts and was promoted to the position of lieutenant colonel – the highest rank a Black woman was entitled to in the US Army.
In Paris, the 6888 units managed civilian posts for a while but were then disbanded in 1846. King opted to stay on for a while and studied at a design college located in Leicester in England and then Nevada Las Vegas for some years after that.
Last year, the 6888th Battalion was bestowed the prestigious honor of receiving the Congressional Gold Medal. It is the highest recognition by the United States Congress. On one side of the medal lies a portrait of Adams, and on the other side stands a large pile of letters and packages inscribed with “clearing the backlog”. In 2023, a US army base was previously named after Confederate General Robert E. Lee, now called Fort Gregg-Adams, as a mark of recognition to both Adams and Arthur Gregg, the former being a part of the 6888 and the later a pioneer African American soldier in the army.
Tyler Perry, the director of Six Triple Eight and amiga of King, released the movie to King just days before her demise, the only place she got to see it was in her hospital room. He later on went to post a video on Instagram, where King said: Thank you for reminding the world of the Black woman’s contribution. Sadly, King’s life ended at the age of 100 on the 18th of Jan, 2024.
On the verge of the commencement of The Civil Rights Act of 1964, the 6888 Battalion set an example of what Black women are truly capable of. Adams in her autobiography goes on to state “What we had was a large group of adult Negro women who had been victimized, in one way or another, by racial bias. This was one opportunity for us to stand together for a common cause.
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