help-capriCongratulations to Octavia Spencer, winner of best supporting actress in a dramatic role for ‘The Help’ at last night’s Golden Globes presented by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association. Spencer spent time in Jackson last fall filming the movie and we offer our sincerest kudos. Spencer said of her time here in Jackson that it was the food and the hospitality that made her work in the Magnolia state so enjoyable. On that note, here is an article we published just one year ago about ‘The Help’ driving tour. It’s worth a mention again (and on a nice day such as this, why not hop in the car and take a drive.)

Skeeter, Aibileen, Miss Hilly, Elizabeth, Stuart, and more walked the streets of Jackson through Kathryn Stockett’s New York Times best selling book ‘The Help’. While the social climate has drastically changed, some of the places throughout the book have not. Now you can download a driving tour through the streets of the Historic Belhaven neighborhood and see the places that inspired Stockett and came to life in her novel, ‘The Help’. You may also remember when the Dreamworks project filmed here last September, Fondren served as a huge backdrop, and included “sets” like the west side of North State, The Pix/Capri, and Brent’s.

Kathryn Stockett, a native of Jackson, used the Greater Belhaven neighborhood extensively for the setting of her bestselling novel, ‘The Help’, published in 2009. Greater Belhaven is one of Mississippi’s most intact historic neighborhoods. It is where Stockett was born, where her grandparents lived, and where she spent a great deal of time in her childhood. The story of ‘The Help’ takes place in 1963, at the height of the Civil Rights struggle in Mississippi. Scenes are set in downtown Jackson and other neighborhoods like Fondren,  as well as Greater Belhaven.

This tour shows the relationship between actual places in Greater Belhaven and the text of ‘The Help’. Following integration in 1964 and during the next 46 years, Jackson became a more equitable culture. African-American Jacksonians emerged as leaders in every sector including government, business, the arts, education, religion and society. Venues included in this tour now attract a racially diverse clientele.

Download the PDF of the tour here.

With information courtesy of Jackson Convention & Visitors Bureau