This past year, with the historic presidential candidacy of Vice President Kamala Harris and postelection discussions on the voting behavior of different U.S. demographics, the impact of Black women has been on the forefront. The recent Netflix film released by Tyler Perry, “The Six Triple Eight,” tells a “Hidden Figures”-style account of the groundbreaking work of the World War II 6888th Central Post Directory Battalion. Filmed partly in Atlanta, Perry’s movie highlights how this unit, the first comprised entirely of Black women serving overseas in World War II, overcame significant odds because of wartime, racism and discrimination to uplift the morale of American soldiers and loved ones. These challenges are all too familiar.
Black women to this day uplift this nation in the face of so many who hate us. The hate is systemic and yet very personal. Fighting for our own well-being and that of our entire democracy is grueling. The women depicted in Perry’s film worked in Europe in February with no heat. They worked in a dilapidated facility that was infested with vermin. The unit worked around the clock to create a processing system that in part still exists. We now work with lower pay for the same job, under unrealistic and inhumane expectations — that we often meet in spite of damage to our own health — and we work with ongoing health disparities, to name a few common obstacles. The women in the 6888th delivered. They surpassed the far too low expectations set for them and implemented a solution ahead of schedule. Today, despite similar odds, Black women still deliver. And the National Council of Negro Women NCNW is their voice.
Credit: Charles Matthews
Credit: Charles Matthews
In the movie, Oprah Winfrey plays educator, activist and civil rights leader Mary McLeod Bethune. Though depicted briefly in this new release, Bethune, founder and then-president of NCNW, was the catalyst for the creation and deployment of this Black women’s unit — and for ongoing decades of impactful contributions by Black women in America.
Bethune was a member of the advisory board that created the Women’s Army Corps in WWII, and she served as assistant director of the WAC. In that role, she lobbied for desegregation of the WAC and for an official overseas mission to be granted to the 6888th Battalion.
On the day of the film’s release, NCNW hosted a virtual watch party with almost 1,000 families from across the country.
Since its founding in 1935, NCNW has engaged with multiple U.S. presidents on foreign and domestic affairs, including Presidents Harry S. Truman and Bill Clinton. Bethune was the first Black woman to lead a federal agency as the director of the Office of Minority Affairs of the National Youth Administration under President Franklin D. Roosevelt. She also created Roosevelt’s “Black Cabinet” of federal agency leads. The organization also has a long-standing presence of leadership with the United Nations and has created partnerships with women in multiple African nations including Ghana, South Africa and Kenya.
NCNW was led by Dorothy I. Height for more than 50 years. She and NCNW were original members of the “Big Six” leaders of the Civil Rights Movement, including the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. (Southern Christian Leadership Conference), John Lewis (Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee), Roy Wilkins (NAACP) and Whitney Young (National Urban League). Height, awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the Congressional Gold Medal, was a key organizer of the 1963 March on Washington.
NCNW, known as the “organization of organizations,” connects more than 2 million women and men. Our mission is to lead, advocate for and empower women of African descent, their families and communities.
Today, NCNW continues to have the ear of the White House and President Joe Biden. I recently returned from Angola as part of a special delegation that traveled with Biden to advance further collaboration in Africa and advance Black communities globally. I proudly led the effort toward getting anti-obesity medication covered under Medicare. I continue to push for this to become law to help alleviate the health disparity with obesity.
In 2025, our priorities include continuing the fight for equal pay for Black women, protecting the Affordable Care Act, justice for missing and murdered Black women and girls, and sustaining Black history in schools. We will ensure stories like that of the Six Triple Eight and the impact of Black contributions continue to be told.
Shavon Arline-Bradley is president and chief executive officer of the National Council of Negro Women Inc.
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