Uncle Remus and Brer Rabbit- how they do take me back. I realize it’s a rarity, but I grew up hearing these stories. I am from the Deep South, went to a small country school, so small that our teachers were our neighbors and/or our relatives. When a teacher needed a substitute, she more than likely called Miss Bernice. We all loved Miss Bernice, because she told us stories all day long. She was into her late seventies when she stopped working, but she was as clear as a bell when she told us about Brer Rabbit and the other animals, or if we were older, Laura Ingalls and her family.
It wasn’t until I was older that I realized that the initial setting of those stories was not politically correct by today’s standards, and I completely understand why… but at no time when we heard them were we ever told anything about slavery or anything along those lines. Uncle Remus was just a man to us. We liked the stories for what they were, and because we spoke “a little country” ourselves, we didn’t think anything about the animals doing it. They were "our" Aesop’s Fables, much more relevant to us because we could “see” that rabbit in a briar patch, “hear” the familiar twang in the voices.
"Free Joe" was a completely different type of story that I had not read from Harris before. It was a moving piece, one that really seemed before its time. It reminded me of Twain’s writing, in that it had a message about slavery not being all that people thought it was; it offered up what had to be new and certainly unpopular ideas. Free Joe’s freedom brought him no measure of happiness, as he was an island unto himself. Other slaves did not want him around, because they were jealous, and because their owners feared his influence. Wealthy whites did not want him around because it was the South, and they had no use for him. Joe had to bend his pride and talk to the only people who would have him, the “poor white trash”, those who he would have never spoken to when he was a slave. He did so only because he was desperate. I felt sorry for Joe, because he lived most of life under the rule of someone else, and when finally got his freedom, he didn’t have the faculties, or the wherewithal, to do anything with it. He was so consumed with concern and love for his wife, that he died waiting for her.