Follow the Drinking Gourd By Dr. Harold Williams of Montgomery College Planetarium http://montgomerycollege.edu/Departments/planet/ http://www.montgomerycollege.edu/Departments/planet/planet/African.htm Title slide

http://womenshistory.about.com/library/pic/bl_p_tubman_2.htm Photograph of Harriet Tubman by H. B. Lindsley, not dated Picture courtesy of the Library of Congress. Scanned and modified for the web by Jone Johnson Lewis. Image © 2002 Jone Johnson Lewis.

The Charles L. Blockson Collection TEMPLE UNIVERSITY, PHILADELPHIA

Follow the Drinking Gourd When the sun comes back and the first quail calls, Follow the Drinking Gourd For the old man is waiting for to carry you to freedom, If you follow the Drinking Gourd.

Stanza two Peg Leg and the Tombigbee River The river bank makes a very good road, The dead trees show you the way, Left foot, peg foot, traveling on Follow the Drinking Gourd.

Tombigbee River Tombigbee , river, c.400 mi (640 km) long, rising in NE Miss. and flowing SE into W Alabama, then generally S to join the Alabama River and form the Mobile River before entering into Mobile Bay at Mobile. The Tombigbee is an important artery for manufactured goods. Dams and locks improve navigation on the river. In 1972 construction was begun on a canal between the Tombigbee and Tennessee rivers. The 253-mi (407-km) waterway, completed in 1984, is another modern link in a navigable system from the Tennessee Valley to the Gulf Coast.

Tombigbee River cypress swamp

Gainswood House near the Tombigbee River

Stanza three and Tennessee River The river ends between two hills, Follow the Drinking Gourd. There's another river on the other side,

Tennessee River drainage

Muscle Shoals Canal Sheffield Alabama

Tennessee River Drainage again

Stanza four the Ohio runs into the Mississippi River at Cairo, Illinois Where the great big river meets the little river, Follow the Drinking Gourd. For the old man is awaiting to carry you to freedom if you follow the Drinking Gourd.

A river formed by the confluence of the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers in western Pennsylvania and flowing about 1,578 km (981 mi) to the Mississippi River at Cairo in southern Illinois. Control of the river was contested by the British and French until 1763. The region was ceded to the United States at the end of the Revolutionary War (1783).

Ohio River & Mississippi River meet at Cairo, Illinois Mississippi River CommissionTitle/Description: Surveys of the Mississippi River Publication Info: Mississippi River Commission, 1890Date: 1890Scale: 1:20,000Original Source: Tulsa Library