Joel Chandler Harris
Joel Chandler Harris (December 8,1848 - July 3, 1908) was an American journalist from Georgia, best known for his collection of Uncle Remus stories: Uncle Remus: His Songs and Sayings (1881), Nights with Uncle Remus (1883), Uncle Remus and His Friends (1892), and Uncle Remus and the Little Boy (1905).
The stories, based on the African-American oral storytelling tradition, were revolutionary in their use of dialect and in featuring a trickster hero called Brer ("Brother") Rabbit, who uses his wits against adversity, though his efforts do not always succeed. The rabbit in Africa was called Zomo. The stories, which began appearing in the Atlanta Constitution in 1879, were popular among both Black and White readers in the North and South, not least because they presented an idealized view of race relations soon after the Civil War.
The first Brer Rabbit stories were written by President Theodore Roosevelt's Uncle, Robert Roosevelt. Teddy Roosevelt wrote in his autobiography, about her aunt from 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." That genius that President Roosevelt spoke of was Joel Harris Chandler.
Apart from Uncle Remus, Chandler wrote several other collections of stories depicting rural life in Georgia.
The 1946 Disney film Song of the South is based on Harris's work.