![Nights With Uncle Remus [ILLUSTRATED]](https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/81BiwG1egXL._AC_UL140_SR140,140_.jpg)
I was thrilled to find UNCLE REMUS AND BRER RABBIT available for my Kindle. I immediately obtained it and started reading, returning to my childhood and being just as enchanted as I was as a three-year-old when I first heard the stories.
Joel Chandler Harris, in writing his stories, recreated the dialect he remembered when he lived at a plantation in Georgia in 1862. During the four years he spent there, he was a frequent visitor to the slave quarters, feeling comfortable and gaining love and respect for the African-American people living there. He patterned Uncle Remus after a couple of elderly black storytellers and went on to write innumerable stories about the adventures of a pesky rabbit and his animal friends and enemies. Some were as the elders told them, others he created. Although sometimes hard to read, his stories are well-suited for improvisation by the reader and children seem as entranced by the language as they are about the characters and their adventures.
Not all has gone well for Harris or his stories. Some black activists have declared his stories to be stereotypical and biased with images of an idyllic slave life. Others claim he purloined the stories to profit from them. Still others have praised his works as being the only real remaining historical records of African animal tales and a welcome addition to African-American folklore.
He was a loner, self-conscious about his appearance, afflicted with alcoholism, and, despite an aversion for the African-American slavery condition, sometimes stubbornly defended it as being a kindly family grouping in some situations. To me, my children, and grandchildren the stories are wondrous adventures of trickery, tomfoolery, and pastoral animal existence that promote family closeness as we relive them together. In contradiction to naysayers, not a thought goes out to the promotion of inhumanity we all know existed during the slavery period of our history.
That brings me to the Walt Disney movie "Song of the South" and its assignment to the banned list. This gorgeously produced 1946 musical depicted a kindly black gentleman who loved all children, regardless of their race, and wanted to tell his stories to them. Wonderful animated adventures in beautiful color bring the animals to life and sprightly tunes are easy for children to remember and sing. But certain factions object to background scenes of peaceful labor in the fields, a gentle portrayal of family life, and Uncle Remus's stereotypical dialect and were able to get it removed from United States viewership. In my mind it's horrendous to lose this glorious piece of entertainment with its accompanying record of folk tales that are now slowly fading away because of inaccessibility. Surely there is some type of cooperative editing that can be applied to remove objectionable background material while keeping the stories alive.
But, although there's a connection, I'm not reviewing the movie. I'm reviewing the book and its collection of stories. They are remarkable and you really should read them again.
Schuyler T Wallace
Author of TIN LIZARD TALES
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