Brer Rabbit, Uncle Remus, and the "Cornfield Journalist"

Walter M. Brasch's carefully researched and engagingly written biography of Joel Chandler [End Page 125] Harris attempts to clarify the intentions of this enigmatic and private man, who is often maligned as racist by twentieth-century scholars. He represents Harris as a successful journalist who supplemented his income by recording and sharing the stories and language of the plantation workers, and as one who loved and respected African Americans and the stories they told. Harris remained in the racist South throughout his life, yet attempted to write beyond local prejudice and sensibilities. Even so, his name became firmly attached to racism through others' commercial exploitation of his work long after his death

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