NEW JERSEY, USA — Tyler Perry took to social media Thursday to promote his latest Netflix film.
Note: The video above is from our sister station, WTSP.
Six Triple Eight was written and directed by Tyler Perry, inspired by an article he read by Kevin M. Hymel.
The Six Triple Eight is also known as the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion of WWII.
This Women's Army Auxiliary Corps group of 855 Black women stepped up to fill an important role in the war.
This group helped consolidate warehouses full of unopened mail overseas for the U.S. in wartime, in the face of segregation and criticism from their military leaders.
Loads of mail were divided into three different shifts. According to the Wounded Warrior Project site, the group processed an average of 65,000 pieces of mail per shift.
The three-year backlog led the women to deliver 17 million pieces of mail, according to Netflix.
"One thing people in the service looked forward to was mail, knowing somebody was still thinking about them,” Corporal Lena Derriecott of Six Triple Eight said.
The motivation for their efforts was to keep a line of communication open between the soldiers and their loved ones and so the phrase was born: "No Mail, Low Morale."
In a 2002 interview, Captain Violet Hill Gordon, an Illinois native who served in Six Triple Eight described her sense of duty.
"It was the feeling, the sustaining feeling was that we were doing something purposeful that had value to it,” she said.
In 2022, Seventy-seven years after World War II, Six Triple Eight received the United States’ highest civilian honors. President Joe Biden signed into law a bill honoring them with a Congressional golden medal.
The award's description said:
To honor the African American women who served in the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion for the "pioneering military service..., the devotion to duty..., [and] the contributions made by those women to increase the morale of all United States personnel stationed in the European Theater of Operations during World War II."
Perry has enlisted A-list actors for the project. They include Oprah, Kerry Washington, Ebony Obsidian, Milauna Jackson, Kylie Jefferson, Shanice Shantay, Sarah Jeffery, Pepi Sonuga, Moriah Brown, Jeanté Godlock, Jay Reeves, Jeffery Johnson, Baadja-Lyne Odums, Donna Biscoe, Gregg Sulkin, Scott Daniel Johnson, Dean Norris, Sam Waterston, and Susan Sarandon.
Netflix has not announced a release date yet. A new trailer promises the project in 2024.