Still, black authors like Toni Morrison and Alice Walker - who was born in Harris' hometown of Eatonton - have denounced the author and say he stole the stories unjustly. Harris is also credited with revolutionizing children's literature, which had never before seen anything like Brer Rabbit and Brer Terrapin. The tales were the first in American literature to give human characteristics to animals and were unique because of the heavy dialect in which Harris penned the tales. The stories were an instant hit, capturing readers across the globe. 'We're letting people know the full story, instead of the story that's been told by other people. 'It's an uphill battle, to say the least,' Shakespeare said sitting in his Wren's Nest office, which was once the bedroom of Harris' mother. Piled on top of that painful history is the controversy surrounding Harris' work - a white man profiting off stories he took from slaves and spreading what many consider to be an unflattering caricature of Southern blacks. It was quite a tall order for a kid who grew up in a family that mostly shunned the museum because of its long-standing practice of not allowing blacks to visit, a policy that ended in 1984 when Shakespeare was a baby.

'I smell a rabbit!' Richardson booms in a deep bass voice for the wolf, making the children laugh.ĭown the hall in an office sits Harris' great-great-great grandson, Lain Shakespeare, a spunky 26-year-old who took over the failing museum three years ago and revived it from near closure using social networking Web sites Twitter and Facebook and a blog.

Julius lester brer rabbit