The Help - Kathryn Stockett

The Help was a wonderful book. It is about the relationships between black and whites in the south in the 1960s. It just makes me really grateful that I live now and not back then. I would hope that I would be the type of person that stood up for equal rights and desegregation, but people were raised with such a different mindset back then. I wonder how much of how we think is based on our surroundings and how we were raised and how much is just inherent in us. I grew up in a small very white populated town in the south where, even today, many racial problems exist and are still prevalent, but my parents raised me to treat others with respect regardless of race, gender, etc.

This book is such a source of empowerment for women. Even in a time when some women didn't have many chances of changing their circumstances, they had dreams and hopes. They made the best out of what they were given.

There is a quote on the back cover of The Help that sums up what I got the most out of this book. :"The Help by Kathryn Stockett is a story that made me weep as I rejoiced for each of humanity's small but steady triumphs over hate and fear. I will never forget this wonderful book." (by Dorothea Benton Frank)

We have come very far as a society, but racism still exists in many parts of our country and across the world. We take baby steps farther every day and I wonder how close we will really get to justice and equality for all.