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February 8, 2023

In celebrating Black history month this year, I thought it would be fitting to finally recognize a triumph of African American literature that has, ironically, been falsely accused of racism. That achievement is embodied in a 1946 Walt Disney movie entitled Song of the South. I assume many of you have not seen the film because Disney has succumbed to the accusations of racism by refusing to re-release it in any form. Nonetheless, you may at least recognize the film’s buoyant Academy Award winning song, “Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah” which arguably forms the musical backbone of the movie.

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Song of the South takes place on a Georgia plantåation about ten years after the Civil War. The main character is Uncle Remus, an elderly Black storyteller who captivates the children with Aesop-like fables derived from Africa. The tales center on a prankster named Br’er Rabbit who must use his wits to escape from the predatory intentions of Br’er Fox and Br’er Bear. As the film’s credits acknowledge, Uncle Remus was an invention of an American writer by the name of Joel Chandler Harris.

Joel Chandler Harris, the illegitimate son of an Irish-American woman, was born in rural Georgia in 1848. At the age of 14, poverty forced Harris to quit school and go to work on the nearby Turnwald plantation. In his free time, however, the curious teenager spent countless hours in the slave quarters, listening to fables recounted by various chroniclers of African culture. The stories were told in the prevalent dialect, and certainly included references to animals interacting with humans, including a spirited trickster akin to Br’er Rabbit himself.

After the Civil War Harris left Turnwald, eventually becoming a newspaper writer, a prolific author of novels and magazine articles, and ultimately editor of a respected publication in Atlanta. As editor, he advocated unpopular causes in the post-Civil War South, such as racial reconciliation and bringing industry to Atlanta. Harris, however, is most noted for publishing dozens and dozens of stories taken from those he heard in the Turnwald slave quarters, and told through the mouth of Uncle Remus, who was a composite of the authentic plantation storytellers.

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That, then, brings me to the Disney movie itself. In summary, the film portrays three of these Uncle Remus fables in such stunning animation and humor that I believe they would still bring unmitigated laughter and joy to any American child. But I also believe that the animated parables narrated by Uncle Remus, combined with other events in the film, provide five moralistic themes which are even more relevant today than they were in 1946. Those events, and the themes that they reveal, are set forth below.

Event 1. Johnny is an upper class, seven-year-old boy from Atlanta who, with his mother, visits his grandmother’s plantation. His father, a newspaper editor who is disliked by his wife and his readership because of what he writes in the paper (a fictional recreation of the real Joel Chandler Harris, perhaps) remains home. Johnny befriends Toby, a poor Black boy and Ginny, a poor, lower class White girl. They play happily together throughout the movie, despite their obvious class and racial differences.

Theme. 1. People should not be judged by their class or color.

Event 2. Johnny attempts to run away from the plantation because he needs his father. It also turns out that Ginny’s father has been away from home, which may explain why her brothers have become incorrigible bullies, and Ginny is so happy to see her father upon his return.

Theme 2. Children need a father.

Event 3. Based on their words and deeds, such as when the bigger bully paraphrases Br’er Bear by telling Toby that he’s gonna knock his head clean off, the two brothers are the personification of Br’er Bear and Br’er Fox, and it is Johnny and Toby who understand some of the lessons from Uncle Remus’s fables to save Ginny’s puppy from her brothers who want to drown it.