The Help

Stockett places the novel in a specific location and point in American history: Jackson, Mississippi, in the early 1960s. Although the novel’s plot events are fictional, she incorporates true historical events and social attitudes to provide a portrait of real life at this time in Jackson, and in the United States at large.

For example, the shooting of NAACP field secretary Medgar Evers functions within the novel as a means of building tension and fear as Aibileen and Minny wonder what could happen to them if they get caught for working on the book. Additionally, Medgar Evers’s death is a true historical event. Evers worked to end segregation in Mississippi during the Civil Rights movement and was fatally shot by a member of Jackson’s White Citizens’ Council in front of his house in June 1963. Stockett’s choice to incorporate this event into the novel’s rising action gives the reader a deeper understanding of the racism that characterized Jackson in the 60s. She also provides insight into how both the Black and white communities of Jackson may have reacted to this tragedy. She shows readers the deeply human and emotional side of history by placing Evers’s assassination in the