War drama fights for long-overdue recognition

Tyler Perry has tackled several different genres over the years, but it took the real-life story of the only Black female World War II battalion to inspire him to delve into historical drama for the first time.

In “The Six Triple Eight,” streaming on Netflix, “Scandal” star Kerry Washington plays Charity Adams, the tough-as-nails Army commander of the 6888th battalion. Composed of 855 women, the battalion helped the military disentangle a postal disaster and deliver millions of pieces of mail to soldiers and loved ones in Europe desperate for a morale boost four years into the war.

Despite incredible skepticism and resistance from the white male Army leadership, the women cleared a backlog of 7 million pieces of mail in Germany in three months, half the time originally allotted, then worked through millions more in France.

“Twice as good with half as much,” Washington said. “They exceeded all expectations.”

The film opens with the death of a white Jewish man with whom Lena Derriecott King (Ebony Obsidian) had fallen in love despite interracial relationships being taboo at the time. Her grief from his death led her to join the Army in 1944.

Perry framed the film around King, who was still alive at the time he wrote the screenplay, flying to her home in Las Vegas to interview her before production began.

Before King died in January, Perry was able to show her an early cut of the film. “She saluted the iPad,” Washington said. “She was so grateful the world would have an opportunity to see this story and really know who these women were.”

The battalion came into existence thanks to support from first lady Eleanor Roosevelt (Susan Sarandon) and President Franklin Delano Roosevelt (Sam Waterston).

Perry’s mentor and close friend, Oprah Winfrey, plays a small role as activist, educator and civil rights leader Mary McLeod Bethune, who encouraged the Roosevelts.

When Perry first called Washington about the movie, he sent her a reel sampling what he wanted to do.

“It was a Friday so I decided to wait until Monday to watch it so we could talk about it,” she said. “I didn’t know anything about it at that point. Over the weekend, I did a photo shoot about amazing Black women in history, and I dressed up like Lena. My social media director told the story about the Six Triple Eight. I said, ‘Wouldn’t it be cool to do a movie about this?’ Then I watched the reel and realized this is what Tyler wanted to do. It was serendipity!”

Washington prepped for the role by reading Adams’ memoir twice, sifting through historical accounts and watching Adams do interviews.

“I was rehearsing one day and we had a knock on the door and a man in transportation said they had found a trunk in an auction that had Charity Adams’ name on the side,” she said. “It was the actual trunk from her time in the Army. We kept getting signs like this that these women are with us. They want us to tell their story.”

Much of the film features Adams going toe-to-toe with racist white men.

“That was normal behavior back then,” Obsidian said. “When you act, you feel things in your body and you remember things that weren’t even your own experience. You are stepping in the shoes of people who did experience it. It was visceral. It was disheartening. It was difficult.”

The land that holds Tyler Perry Studios was used during the Civil War to mobilize Confederate troops. It later became Fort McPherson, an Army base that closed in 2011. Many of the original Army buildings were used in “The Six Triple Eight.”

“There is irony and poetry in the fact that this space was once occupied by a Confederate army trying to maintain the system of slavery as opposed to what it’s being used for now — to uplift the stories of Americans of all shades and backgrounds,” Washington said. “That is beautiful, creative justice happening on that land.”