Br'er Rabbit aunt from the State of Georgia, that "She knew all the 'Br'er Rabbit' stories, and I was brought up on them. One of my uncles, Robert Roosevelt, was much struck with them, and took them down from her dictation, publishing them in "Harper's", where they fell flat. This was a good many years before a genius arose who, in 'Uncle Remus', made the stories immortal." These stories were popularized for the mainstream audience in the late 19th century by Joel Chandler Harris (1845–1908), who wrote down and published many such stories that had been passed down by oral tradition. Harris
Joel Chandler Harris a problematic and contradictory figure: sometimes a mouthpiece for white paternalism, sometimes a stereotype of the black entertainer, and sometimes poetically subversive. Julius Lester, a black folklorist and university professor, sees the Uncle Remus stories as important records of black folklore. He has rewritten many of the Harris stories in an effort to elevate the subversive elements over the purportedly racist ones. Regarding the nature of the Uncle Remus character, Lester said, There are no inaccuracies in Harris's characterization of Uncle Remus. Even the most cursory reading of the slave narratives collected by the Federal Writer's Project of the 1930s