What are the main events of Kathryn Stockett's novel, The Help?

In Kathryn Stockett's novel, The
Help, the main events generally center around its three main characters:
Skeeter Phalen who decides to write the book about "the help;" Aibileen, the black maid
who works for Skeeter's friend Elizabeth; and, Minny, the brusque and outspoken maid who
has been fired several times because she cannot keep her mouth closed while working with
the white families who employ her.

Major events that
surround Skeeter include her return from college without a
husband—much to her mother's disappointment. Skeeter dates Stuart, the son of a state
senator, and for a while this delights her and impresses her friends. However, Stuart
has never recovered from an old girlfriend's infidelity, and he cannot deal with
Skeeter's desire to expose the social injustices visited upon the "hired help" in their
town. Skeeter is strong willed; in one instance, while standing up for what she
believes, she has a large group of toilets delivered onto the lawn of a "former" friend
who insists upon degrading the hired maids even further by insisting they have their own
bathroom facilities in the house where they work, insisting that these women are
diseased. Skeeter becomes very close to Aibileen and Minny. And she is greatly
distressed when her friend Hilly arranges for her maid's arrest, along with an unfair
sentence of four years in prison, for petty theft. Skeeter is the original driving force
to get the book published, getting the plan from an idea Aibileen's dead son had
had.

Minny gets fired early on from Miss Hilly's home, and
finds herself working for Miss Celia, who is unfortunate enough to come from a poor and
humble background and to have married Johnny, who had dated Miss
Hilly for a very long time. Hilly was sure they would marry, and
when Johnny marries Celia, Hilly decides that no one in Jackson
will open their home to Celia. Celia tries hard to please her husband, secretly hiring
Minny to cook and clean because Celia can do neither. Minny saves Celia's life when she
miscarries, and Celia saves Minny's life when a crazy, naked man attacks the maid in
Celia's front yard. (Celia's humble beginnings included dealing with a drunk father on a
regular basis, and she flattens the intruder
easily.)

Aibileen is the first woman to agree to work with
Skeeter, and it is her involvement (and extenuating circumstances to be sure) that draw
Minny into the project. Aibileen cares for Miss Elizabeth's daughter Mae Mobley. And
when the child's mother brushes her baby off because she doesn't have the time for her,
Aibileen decides that she will personally spend as much time as
possible in convincing Mae that she is a good, smart and kind child—for Mae, at two
years old, gets no encouragement and little love from her family
members.

Robert, the grandson of Louvenia (a maid), is
beaten with a tire iron because he uses a "whites-only" bathroom that is unmarked. He is
permanently blinded.

Medgar Evers is assassinated during
the course of the book, which devastates the black
community.

The novel the three women put together is
published by Harper and Row. The initial publication is larger than they had expected it
to be, and there is a second printing as well. Skeeter's editor
expects it to be a "hot" item as the country prepares for the Civil Rights Movement's
March on Washington.

The life of the town, the
relationships that develops between these women, and their triumph with the book are
interwoven with life in the U.S. in the sixties.