Yesterday, work took me to Milledgeville, which was the Capital of Georgia during the Civil War. Along the way I got a speeding ticket in Eatonton. Eatononton, it turns out, is famous for being the birth place of both Alice Walker (The Color Purple, The Temple of My Familiar, etc.) and Joel Candler Harris, journalist and author of the Unlce Remus stories - a wacky juxtaposition. I thought that I grew up with the last generation to hear the Uncle Remus stories or see the Disney movie Song of the South, but the stories are available on Amazon. I didn’t remember much more about the stories than Brer Rabbit being thrown into the briar patch and the tar baby. According to this article in WikiPedia, the animal stories were not overtly racist, as they were essentially a re-telling of the West African trickster myths. The offensive part was the patronizing portrayal of Uncle Remus and the undercurrent of support for slavery. In another strange juxtaposition, the Wren’s Nest, Harris’s Atlanta home (on the National Register of historical places) is in what is now a predominantly African-American neighborhood. I’ve never been, but according to this review by Frommer’s travel guides, the best reason to visit the Wrens’ Nest is for story time, a collection of African and African-American folklore. Presumably, Uncle Remus and his dialect have been deleted from the program. Have any of you Atlanta-area BGB-ers been to the Wren’s Nest?
March 28th, 2006 at 9:28 pm
I have never been to the Wren’s Nest but I was born (though not raised) in Milledgeville. I have been to the Uncle Remus museum in Eatonton. I was a teenager at the time, newly returned to Georgia from a childhood immersed in Southern California color-blindness. I remember being uncomfortable with some of the subjects tackled by the museum but can’t put my finger on what it was.
Now, while you were in the mighty metropolis of Milledgeville did you have a chance to see Flannery O’Connor’s aunt’s home? Or the farm (Andalusia) where she lived during the last years of her life? She’s buried in Memory Hill Cemetary very near downtown. And of course, she attended Georgia College and State University when it was Georgia State College for Women. She disliked the school and wrote disparagingly about it in her letters. Now, of course, the school is the hot spot for information and the preservation of her works and biography.
It’s late, I’m rambling…. I just find it fascinating that, like Monroeville, AL, these two little towns in Georgia have produced such major Southern voices. Is it something in the water?
March 29th, 2006 at 12:03 am
Sally, once again you sent me to WikiPedia scrambling to look up something I was supposed to know. My sources tell me famouse Monroeville-ians include: Harper Lee and Truman Capote. I had no idea. I have never been there, but I get to go to some out of the way places for work, so who knows.
I did not catch the Flannery O’Connor’s aunt’s home while in Milledgeville. Next time I’ll keep my eyes peeled.
March 31st, 2006 at 2:40 pm
If you get to Monroeville sometime the whole town puts on a play acting out To Kill A Mockingbird. I think it’s in May…. Of course Haper Lee hides out or goes out of town. She abhors the touristy side of the book’s success.
As for Milledgeville… O’Connor’s aunt’s home is behind the Old Governor’s Mansion. Anybody can tell you where that is. And then there’s Andalusia, the farm where she wrote most of her stories. It’s out off hwy 441 on the north side of town. There are tours and you can see the room, the sunporch, where she sat and wrote and where her bed was after her lupus made it difficult for her to get around. I’ve actually never been there. It was not open to the public when I lived there. At the library at Georgia College there is a room dedicated to her letters, works, memorabilia. It’s a wonderful museum, well worth the stop.
July 21st, 2006 at 2:33 pm
I worked for the Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games in the early years. During the mascot development phase (and let’s not discuss which one was chosen), Andrew Young was pushing for Brer Rabbit as the mascot, since the stories originated from African tales. First time I realized that not all African-Americans see those stories as racist, but part of their cultural heritage.