Uncle Remus Uncle Remus Uncle Remus is the fictional title character and narrator of a collection of African-American folktales adapted and compiled by Joel Chandler Harris, published in book form in 1881. A journalist in post-Reconstruction Atlanta, Georgia, Harris produced seven Uncle Remus books. He wrote these stories to represent the struggle in the Southern United States, and more specifically in the plantations. He did so by introducing tales he had heard and framing them in the plantation context. He wrote his stories in a dialect that represented the voice of the narrators and their subculture. For this choice of framing, his
Uncle Remus times, African American mothers are known to read the Br'er Rabbit stories to their children to teach them about the significance of protecting the small from the big and the weak from the powerful. Harris modeled Uncle Remus after a man known as "Free Joe" Edwards. In 1885, Free Joe was stabbed to death by Bell Todd in a quarrel over a woman. Todd was convicted of murder. An "Uncle Remus and His Tales of Br'er Rabbit" newspaper Sundays-only strip (King Features Syndicate) ran from October 14, 1945, through December 31, 1972. The stories have inspired at least three feature