Louvenia is my fifth interview. She is Lou Anne Templeton’s maid and I recognize her from serving me at bridge club. Louvenia tells me how her
grandson, Robert, was blinded earlier this year by a white man, because he used a white bathroom.
Stockett, 2009: 257
The quotation above describes that Robert is blind because he uses a white bathroom. The novel shows all the white think that the black are dirty who can spread many kinds of disease.
The diases are caused by the black people. This problem makes white people get worried about their healthy. Because of this difference, the prejudice comes and makes the people
build the space which separates the white and the black.
4.2.2 The Impact of Segregation in Education
Segregated housing directly affected the education and employment opportunities. The quote below is Aibileen’s story, even though she is a smart person but she don’t have
opportunity into high school. She have to help her mother and work as a maid like black people usually do.
I been writing my prayers since I was in junior high. When I tell my seventh- grade teacher I ain’t coming back to school cause I got to help out my mama,
Miss Ross just about cried. You’re the smartest one in the class, Aibileen,” she say. “And the only way
you’re going to keep sharp is to read and write everyday” So I started writing my prayers down instead a saying em. But nobody called
me smart since.
Stockett, 2009: 22
The quotation above describes that the black people have limited work opportunities than the white. From this quotation, it is known that there are unequal economic conditions
between the white and the black. Most of the people are living in prosperity while in the same time most of the black are living in very poor condition. This difference produces the
economic competition which is not equal.
Universitas Sumatera Utara
This economic competition then causes the racial segregation toward the black who are in fact economically in the lower position then the white. It is shown clearly that the people say
that white and black people are different. So, in the other word, this case shows that there is segregation in getting education for the black in Katryn Stockett’ The Help.
The impact of segregation in school also affect to library. Separate and unequal access to knowledge is the antithesis of library ideals. During the civil rights movement libraries were
a popular target for protests because libraries were symbols of democracy and opportunity for all. Under segregation black people were generally denied access to public libraries in the
Southern United States.
“Go down to the State Street Library. They have a whole room full of Southern writers. Faulkner, Eudora Welty—”
Aibileen gives me a dry cough. “You know colored folks ain’t allowed in that library.”
I sit there a second, feeling stupid. “I can’t believe I forgot that.” The colored library must be pretty bad. There was a sit-in at the white library a few years ago
and it made the papers. When the colored crowd showed up for the sit-in trial, the police department simply stepped back and turned the German shepherds loose. I
look at Aibileen and am reminded, once again, the risk she’s taking talking to me. “I’ll be glad to pick the books up for you,” I say.
Aibileen hurries to the bedroom and comes back with a list. “I better mark the ones I want first. I been on the waiting list for To Kill a Mockingbird at the Carver
Library near bout three months now. Less see . . .” Stockett, 2009: 154
Aibileen is a smart person wants to enlarge her knowlegde but she cannot borrow the book from the white library because she is black. The impact of segregation can be seen in
the library as one of public service that made separate between black and white.
4.2.3 The Impact of Segregation in Hospital
