The Six Triple Eight brings to light another ignored piece of American World War II history that was overlooked because it involved Black women. It’s a story worth knowing and provides long overdue recognition to an Army battalion of women soldiers.
The Six Triple Eight was directed by Tyler Perry who based the story on the article “Fighting a Two-Front War” by Kevin M. Hamel. The film bears all the Tyler Perry trademarks, especially overacting, but the compelling nature of the story holds you throughout.
We are taken into the story by Lena Derriecott King (Ebony Obsidian), a high school senior. She’s in love with Abram David (Gregg Sulkin). He joins the service to fight against Hitler. Lena decides to enlist as well, as soon as she graduates from high school.
Lena is sent to Georgia where she joins hundreds of other Black women soldiers in the 6888 battalion. Their leader and trainer is Captain Charity Adams (Kerry Washington) with Captain Campbell (Milauna Jackson).
Lena befriends several of the women and the story narrows down to them as representative of all the women. The noisiest and most Tyler Perryish of the women is Johnnie Mae (Shanice Shantay).
Captain Adams fights for her women against the racism of the Army and her superior officers. Her complaints of harassment are ignored and her pleas for an assignment for her troops go unanswered.
Americans waiting for word from the war start to complain no mail is coming. A worried mom (Kerry O’Malley) stands outside the White House for several days until finally Eleanor Roosevelt (Susan Sarandon) asks her in for a talk. Soon President Roosevelt (Sam Waterston) is asking his generals what is going on with the mail. They have a lot of excuses.
When Roosevelt talks to the generals, he brings his wife and Mary McLeod Bethune (Oprah Winfrey) into the room. Bethune suggests sending the 6888 to Europe to sort out the problem. The generals were all 100% racist. They agreed to do it but set up so they were sure it would fail.
When the 6888 arrived, they found warehouses full of mail. They were given unheated and filthy quarters and six months to sort and deliver 17 million pieces of mail.
They figured it out with imagination, detective work, creativity, and determination. Ahead of their deadline. The racist General Halt (Dean Norris) tried 15 different ways to make them fail. None worked. The men at the front started hearing from home and the folks at home started hearing from the men.
Lena’s war story came to a sad ending, but she met a male soldier there who she later married. Lena is still alive, and was shown at the end of the film. She’s 100 years old now.
The Six Triple Eight is a moving and inspiring story. The most touching part was the list of all 800+ names of the women who served at the end of the film. They rolled by pretty fast, but you can pause it to look for names of relatives you might know about who served.
So many achievements of Black Americans get left out of the history books. I’m glad this one got documented. In 2022, the U.S. Naming Commission proposed the name of Fort Lee be changed to Fort Gregg-Adams, after Lieutenant General Arthur J. Gregg and Lieutenant Colonel Charity Adams Earley. A bit of justice at last.
You can see this important historical film on Netflix.
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