That’s what Uncle Remus said…

Dispatches from the road, Summer 2007

When he died in 1908, Joel Chandler Harris left behind an unparalleled legacy– more than 60 stories retelling the oral traditions of Georgia slaves. A printer’s devil to a plantation owner and publisher in Eatonton, Harris had the opportunity to collect these stories heard on the plantation, often shared by slaves with the plantation owner’s young son. He published them in part as a magazine series Uncle Remus Magazine, complete with illustrations. On my travels through Georgia over the years, I’d passed the sign many times and this time we decided to find the museum dedicated to Harris’ work, a nonprofit community effort found along business US 441 in Eatonton. Inside several former slave cabins, dioramas, artifacts, and historical ephemera bring the authentic pre-Disney Uncle Remus to life.