The first African-American woman elected to the Chicago City Council, Anna Langford passed away Sept 17, 2008 in her Chicago Englewood neighborhood home after a three month battle with cancer. She was first elected in 1971 as alderman of the 16th Ward, which encompasses such South Side neighborhoods as Englewood, Back-of-the-Yards and Gage Park. Although she lost her reelection bid in 1975, Langford was reelected in 1983 and server two terms. This was the same contentious year that Harold Washington was elected as Chicago's first black mayor, partially because Anna challenged the former Illinois congressman to either run for mayor, or else she would. "She kind of goaded Washington into running for mayor. She even printed up some cards that said 'Langford For Mayor,'" her son, a spokesman for the Chicago Fire Department, said. "I've still got them." Anna was born October 27, 1917 in Springfield, Ohio. Her father, Arthur J. Riggs, was a hard-working black man who labored at the nearby Imperial Rubber plant. He died when she was only nine months old leaving her mother Alice, a white woman, to raise the children. When she was eight years old Anna's mother went to the hospital for stomach pains. When her mulatto children showed up to see her, she was immediately discharged and sent to a hospital that served blacks. On the way to that hospital her appendix ruptured and she died, leaving Anna and her siblings to live with her grandmother.

This act of racism affected Anna early and deeply, as did the poor conditions under which they now had to survive. Those were hard days, living in a shanty house with her grandmother and three siblings. "There was a big wash tub in the corner, with a sheet in front of it" she said. "Every weekend we would fill it up with hot water and take turns bathing. We would each get an additional pot of water from the stove to help keep the water warm when our turn came." She often told tales of those early times. She would go out picking and cleaning wild turnip greens that grew around the area, then sell them to passersby. "I'd have 2-cent bundles and 3-cent bundles.

At the end of the summer I'd use the money I had saved to buy pencils and paper and gym shoes for school". One afternoon a school playmate of Anna's went home and, aware of her friend's living conditions, asked her mother if Anna could come and live with them. The family had a nicer house, and enough room, so the mother agreed and took Anna into her home. After a year or so the mother made a trip to Chicago to visit her eldest daughter, taking young Anna with her to see "the big city." As fate would have it, the mother fell seriously ill during the trip and was hospitalized, then sent back home to Ohio to recover. Anna was left in Chicago with the daughter and began attending school. Although the woman took good care of her, "the bad part is that she was a bootlegger" Anna recounted. "She had a still and everything right there in the house. After the Feds caught her twice and threatened to lock her up, she moved from the west side to the south side and got a job. But eventually she went back to bootlegging and got caught again." "I had an uncle with a nice big apartment by the park. When she got arrested that last time I went to live there." She continued living there and in 1935 she graduated from Hyde Park High School in the top 10% of her class. Langford attended a trade school to learn office skills and worked from 1938 to 1956 as a typist in the Social Security office, the Election Commissioners Office and in the office of the Secretary of State where she eventually became manager of a DMV office and testing center. In February 1956, after eleven years of attending law school and working to pay for it, Anna received her law degree from John Marshall Law School.

She went on to practice criminal and civil rights law, primarily noted for defending civil rights workers in the 60s and her voter registration efforts in Mississippi. Anna also joined and promoted marches led by Martin Luther King Jr. whenever he came to Chicago, once letting Dr. King use her home to plan for a march on Cicero to promote integration The woman that President Clinton once referred to as "The Mother of Englewood" was actually one of the very first blacks to move into that neighborhood. "There was a Chicago Police Department vehicle posted outside the house for the first two years" of her residence as a result of the hate mail and threats from residents of the previously all-white community. In this instance, as in many others, she persevered and another color line was broken forever. Black people were now free to move to one of the 'better' neighborhoods of Chicago's south side without fear of reprisal. In her years as an Attorney and counselor and civil rights advocate Anna Langford touched the lives of countless families, leaving most of them the better for it. She has received numerous humanitarian and civic award and honors, including being inducted into the Book of Legends by the Black Women Lawyers Association and being named one of the DuSable Museum's African-American history makers in 2003. Anna is survived by her son Larry, three grandchildren and a great-grandchild.

I had the personal blessing of having Anna Langford as my Godmother and advisor throughout my life. She and my mother were best of friends and taught me early in life about the inequities of the social system and the need to struggle every day to make a change. We as black people should take her lead and try to make a small difference every day. Pass on some history, help an elder, educate a child, take a moment to listen. As my godmother once said to me "If we all push a little we can turn a molehill into a mountain." - Stephen H. Watkins, Sr.