Chicago Afternoons with Leon

Chapter 2

“Follow the Drinking Gourd”

Two Men Share Meaning and Mission



Studs Terkel looked directly at Leon and called him “My North Star.”
“You are the one,” he said.

In reflecting on who they are and have been, Leon Despres at 99 and Studs Terkel at 95, found a common phrase—a metaphor—to express the great directive of their shared drive and purpose:
Follow the drinking gourd.
This short phrase resonates from the days of slavery in this country. Prior to the Civil War, slaves in the Southern states had one possibility that they and their children would ever be free. They had what historians call the Underground Railroad. Often with prices on their heads such, individuals such as the ex-slave woman, Sojourner Truth, put their lives on the line to sneak onto plantations and help captives escape to freedom in the North. The huddled, frightened but determined slaves were advised to look to the night sky and “Follow the drinking gourd.”
The Big Dipper looked to them like the hollowed-out gourd used on plantations throughout the South as a drinking ladle. Staring at it in the sky, they could locate off its tip the one clearly fixed star, Polaris, the North Star. To escaping slaves, the “drinking gourd” was a heavenly symbol that could direct them toward the land of freedom.
Studs brought the expression up in a reminiscing conversation, uttering the phrase melodically as though it were in itself a mutual poetic slogan. To him, it embodied an ideal symbol in his and Leon’s quest to make this world more human, just and civil.
To him, the phrase showed how they had traveled facing ever forward through life, ever heading in the direction in which they still want to keep going in the future.
Leon embraced the metaphor with equal fervor and repeated the words, “Follow the drinking gourd” with the same certainty. It said it as though it were a proven truth such as Einstein’s mathematical “E equals MC squared” or did Louis Sullivan’s architectural “Form follows function.”
Studs Terkel then looked directly at Leon and called him “My North Star.”
“You are the one,” he said.
The North Star symbol was the same one that a mutual hero of Studs and Leon, Illinois Gov. John Peter Altgeld had used. The 1890s Illinois governor—respected in retrospect for his insight and courage—spoke of “following the North Star” when he discussed the role of those in the political minority and what they could achieve:
Thomas Jefferson, who spoke for the minority, declared that the people could be trusted. He said: Yonder is the ocean of freedom calm and deep. Steer the ship of state out upon it and ride in safety. Keep away from the dangerous shoals and rocks near the shore. Keep away from the dangerous debris which the ages of superstition, tyranny and oppression have deposited there. Take your longitude and latitude from the sun and the never changing stars and steer toward the port of liberty and the rights of humanity.
Studs was saying the man with whom he was speaking had been one of those unchanging stars; but in combining the expression with the phrase, “Follow the drinking gourd,” he added a powerful metaphoric image to Altgeld’s use of it.
Neither of these men has truly taken on a life-endangering role matching that of Sojourner Truth. Nevertheless, their unending willingness has assumed heroic dimensions whenever it embraced unpopular positions in behalf of those denied their rights.
“The North Star is what Leon Despres has been for me.” Studs said. “He has helped point me north. He has been persistent and reassuring.”
Leon, his long-time friend, returned the acknowledgement.
 “Studs,” he said, “You have been the one.”
Indeed, those in the room stood with their mouths agape. They knew these two men well. And such language helped describe their extraordinary relationship
In Chicago politics, Leon had set the standard for independence and integrity.
Studs Terkel has given voice to the American people, to the ordinary man and woman as well as the famous, to the worker, the soldier, the African-American, the elderly, the jazz musician, the World War II soldier and the individual seeking the meaning of his or her life.
He has achieved this as one of the most respected radio interviewers the nation had ever known and then he amplified it through an award-winning series of oral history books, which put a real face on the people of this country.
Leon has given leadership to the voter who stood in opposition to power and machine politics, to the worker who sought to organize and to individuals who wanted our nation to be rid of the yoke of the segregated status quo.
The two nonagenarians have done more than perform the major roles that have made them icons. They have taken every opportunity along their respective journeys to speak up and encourage others to do so.