After battling pancreatic cancer, La Guardia
died in 1947. Following a funeral at the Episcopal
Cathedral of St. John the Divine, he was buried in
New York City’s Woodlawn Cemetery.
Bibliography
Elliott, Lawrence. Little Flower: The Life and Times of
Fiorello La Guardia.New York: Morrow, 1983.
Fiorello La Guardia Papers, New York City Municipal
Archives and Records Center.
Janken, Kenneth Robert. White: The Biography of Walter
White, Mr. NAACP.New York: The New Press,
2003.
Kessner, Thomas. Fiorello H. La Guardia and the Making
of Modern New York.New York: Penguin Books,
1991.
Moses, Robert. La Guardia, a Salute and a Memoir.New
York, Simon and Schuster, 1957.
“Lai-Li” Mae Cowdery(1928)
The only published short story by MAECOWDERY,
a PHILADELPHIApoet.
Cowdery’s story of love, seduction, and death
appeared in the June 1928 issue of BLACKOPALS,
the journal of the literary society of which she was
a part. Peppered with ellipses, the story chronicles
the haunting and mysterious reunion between an
island girl named Lai-Li and a sea captain who
once romanced her. While it appears that the cou-
ple reunites, they meet only in death. The cap-
tain’s body is discovered by two of his crewmen,
who bury him on the island.
Cowdery’s suggestive imagery plays on the
stereotypes of island girls. The ultimate nature of
the reunion, however, is part of a fleeting critique
of conceptions of “the native” and the nature of
romance.
Langston, John Mercer(1829–1897)
The maternal great-uncle of LANGSTONHUGHES,
one of the most accomplished figures of the
Harlem Renaissance.
Langston was born free in Louisa County, Vir-
ginia. His father, Ralph Quarles, was the owner of
Lucy Langston, a woman of African and Native
American heritage and a former slave on his Vir-
ginia plantation. Langston was orphaned at the age
of four. William Gooch, one of Quarles’s executors,
and his family in Chillicothe, Ohio, raised Langston.
He later went to live with the abolitionist Richard
Long when the Gooches relocated to Missouri, a
slave state in which Langston’s status and inheri-
tance were threatened. He married Caroline Wall.
She was an OBERLINCollege student and, like
Langston, also the daughter of an interracial union
between a slave owner and a woman enslaved on
his North Carolina plantation. Langston and Wall
married in 1854 and went on to have five children.
Langston excelled at Oberlin College and
passed the Ohio bar exam. In 1855, he became the
first African-American elected to public office and
served as clerk for two Ohio townships. Active in
recruiting African Americans for the Mas-
sachusetts 54th and 55th Civil War Regiments,
Langston went on to become a law professor and
acting president of HOWARD UNIVERSITY in
WASHINGTON, D.C. In 1877, he was appointed
consul general to HAITIand served two terms. In
1890, he was elected to the U.S. House of Repre-
sentatives and became the first African-American
congressman from Virginia. Langston published his
autobiography, From the Virginia Plantation to the
National Capitol,in 1894.
Langston Hughes was very aware of his uncle’s
impressive political and scholarly achievements.
His international travel, including trips to HAITI,
and numerous readings at schools such as Virginia
State College, allowed him to advance further his
great-uncle’s legacy of inspiring community out-
reach and racial uplift.Bibliography
Berry, Faith, ed. Langston Hughes: Before and Beyond
Harlem.Westport, Conn.: Lawrence Hill & Com-
pany, 1983.
Cheek, William F., and Aimee Lee Cheek. John Mercer
Langston and the Fight for Black Freedom, 1829–65.
Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1989.
Langston, John Mercer. From the Virginia Plantation to the
National Capitol: or, The First and Only Negro Repre-
sentative in Congress from the Old Dominion.Hart-
ford, Conn.: American Publishing Company, 1894.
New York, Arno Press, 1969.
Rampersad, Arnold. The Life of Langston Hughes: I, Too,
Sing America.Vol. 1: 1902–1941.New York: Oxford
University Press, 1986.Langston, John Mercer 303