Curator - Designer - Consultant

​Click on the HELP image to the left for a five-minute video about the exhibit. 

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Beyond the Help: The role of the African American Maid on the Silver Screen

Premise:
To examine the pivotal role of the Black maid in the shaping of stereotypes and misconceptions portrayed by the cinema as bottle washers and mammies. Their acting roles, often seen as accommodating and supportive of their employers, provided a microcosm of society's acceptance of second-class citizenship during transitional periods of social change in America.

Hollywood's casting system of Black women during the 1930s, 40s and mid-50s, created a mammy characterization that has left a tattoo of attitudes on how Black women are viewed today.

​Beyond the Help shows that these down-trodden women of the kitchen, nursery and mothering, provided generations of White families with a support system.  In segregated America, these women offered advice, as nurturing mid-wives in complex social and family situations that were disturbingly real then and the genesis of systemic racism today.

Reach out to LarryLester42@gmail.com for rental options. View program guide here.

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Featured ​Personalities:

Louise Beavers - another overweight mammy figure who was always generous, forgiving and apologetic in submissive roles as a maid, servant or slave.  Often insightfully gifted, she bashfully played down her intellect to accommodate her bosses.  

Hattie McDaniel - a big-boned woman, with an ebony complexion, big hips, and toothy smile, perfected the optimistic, sentimental Black woman whose sweet, sunny disposition and kindheartedness almost always saved the day. 

Butterfly McQueen - with a high-pitched voice, the diminutive maid had the gift of operating in a world of her own. She is best known for playing helpless hysterical maids, not worthy of employment.

Juanita Moore - a very underrated actress who is best known for her role as Annie Johnson, the ever-smiling, accommodating, soft-spoken Mom in the 1959 version of Imitation of Life.
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Ethel Waters - is another Black matriarch myth in American pop culture. Perhaps better known as a blues and gospel singer.

Other significant maid actresses featured are: Ruby Dandridge (pictured as Beulah), Viola Davis, Jackie “Moms" Mabley, Lillian & Amanda Randolph and Octavia Spencer.

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