The new Tyler Perry movie, "The Six Triple Eight," is based on the true story of America’s only Women's Army Auxiliary Corp unit of color and their unique contribution to the war effort during World War II.
And one of the last remaining members of that unit lives in Tempe.
The movie is a story about the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion. Where their job was to tackle yearslong mail backlog — including letters, packages and, in some cases, rotting food.
Fannie Griffin McClendon, now 104, served in the unit. She said she and some others faced discrimination early on — being told they failed to test into basic training. That is until a friend with connections to the first lady at the time stepped in.
When she was 99, Congressman Greg Stanton interviewed Griffin McClendon on that experience.
“I don’t know what she did, but we all got in and then we went on to basic training,” McClendon said.
In a 2001 interview, she said during the war, the unit tackled a yearslong mail backlog — and finished the task early.
"We had over 600 cards and we had to determine whether [soldiers] maybe were killed in action, whether they had gone home, or they moved on to another unit or another area,” McClendon said.
The Netflix movie on the battalion’s importance premieres in December.
