By: William D. Slicker
In his teen years (which were during the Civil War), Joel Chandler Harris lived at Turnwold Plantation, near Eatonton, Georgia where he worked as a typesetter for The Countryman newspaper. While living there, he listened to the animal stories told by the slaves.
After the war, he moved to Atlanta once it was rebuilt, after the city had been burned to the ground by General Sherman’s army. In Atlanta, Mr. Harris wrote the stories he had heard from the slaves as a series in The Atlanta Constitution.
Mr. Harris later collected the stories into a book titled Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings, which was published in 1880.
Perhaps the most famous of the stories was Brer Rabbit and the Tar Baby in which Brer Rabbit gets stuck on a Tar Baby. When Brer Fox comes along, Brer Rabbit tricks Brer Fox into throwing him in a briar patch (rather than eating him) and that’s where Brer Rabbit laughs and makes his escape. In the pre-emancipation South, it was a crime to teach blacks how to read and write. Therefore, they developed their own dialect of English.
Here is Brer Fox talking to Brer Rabbit:
Who ax you for ter come en strike up a’quaintence wid dish yer Tar-Baby? En who stuck you up dar whar you iz? Nobody in de roun’ worril. You des tack en jam yo’se’f on dat Tar-Baby widout waitin’ fer enny invite.[1]
Over time the stories were labeled as racist because they were told in the dialect of black slaves. Many libraries removed the books from their shelves.[2]
The remnants of that black dialect remain today in some black communities. That dialect is now called African American Vernacular English[3]. Examples include:
I be good instead of I am good.
He been married instead of he was married.
I ain’t got none instead of I don’t have any
Ax instead of ask
Po’lice instead of police’
Believe-did instead of believed
Bidness instead of business
Chillin instead of children
I’m fixin to instead of I’m getting ready to
He’s growed up instead of he’s grown
Learn me instead of teach me
Po instead of poor
Sho instead of sure
Throwed instead of threw
Toe up instead of torn up
Wit you instead of with you
Yo instead of your[4]
Presently, there is a movement to have this black dialect considered “a legitimate, rule-governed language” recognized as a second language for multilingualism programs in schools[5]. This would “affirm” the dialect rather than “correct” it.
This seems to confirm the adage that if you wait long enough, a lot of things come back into style. What was once banned because some people found it racist is now being elevated by some people as something that should be recognized in schools as the equivalent of traditional American English. As Tupac Shakur said, “History repeats itself.” I think ole Brer Rabbit, he be laughin’.
[1] Harris, Joel Chander, “Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings,” D. Appleton and Company, 1880 reprinted 1895.
[2] Reece, Stacy “The Complicated History of Uncle Remus,” Down South House & Home (Nov. 19, 2018) https://downsouth.house/blogs/news/the-complicated-history-of-uncle-remus?srsltid=AfmBOopxqMhAmbct0dqmtmG34tWLW0vjnifvX0z7fXItBXfftJm32HQ2.
[3] Sidnell, Jack, “African American Vernacular English,” University of Hawaii, last accessed July 27, 2026.
[4] “McClendon, Garrard, “Ax or Ask? The African American Guide to Better English,” Duthga Press, 2018; Smitherman, Geneva, “Black Talk” Houghton Mifflin Co. 1994.
[5] D’Abroaca, Peter, “Leftist California Group Pushes to Add “Black English” to Schools’ Multilingual Education Programs,” Fox News (July 8, 2026). https://www.hawaii.edu/satocenter/langnet/definitions/aave.html
