While living with his grandmother, .
Langston was able to learn about the many successes of his forbearers. Mary was the .
first black woman to attend Oberlin College in Ohio. Her first husband, Sheridan Leary, .
was killed while fighting in the Harper Ferry Raid. Mary's second husband and .
Langston's grandfather, Charles Langston, was a politician, but his brother, John Mercer .
Langston, was a Virginia congressman as well as US minister to Haiti. Instead of being .
proud of his family's history, though, Langston was ashamed of their current poverty. .
They often went without food to save money for mortgage on Mary's house. To keep .
Langston occupied and keep reminding him what he had to be proud of, Mary would tell .
him stories about brave and heroic people of all races, fighting together for equality and .
against slavery. They taught him to keep his head up and not to cry about things he .
couldn't change. "Nobody ever cried in my grandmother's stories. They worked, or .
schemed, or fought. But no crying. My grandmother's stories (without her ever having .
said so) taught me the uselessness of crying" (Haskins 6). Langston's grandmother died .
when he was twelve years old, leaving him to live with some family friends, whom .
Hughes referred to as "Auntie and Uncle Reed." Living with the Reeds exposed him to .
the upperclass of Washington D.C. They were prominent people in the black community .
there, though still not rich. The people Langston was exposed to did not strike him as true .
blacks. He saw them as blacks trying to find a way into the white world, instead of .
owning their blackness. Langston eventually won a scholarship to college. When he .
returned home to visit he was often upset by the people around him. Langston would go .
to Seventh Street, "the Harlem of D.C." He used the people he met here and their lives to .
inspire him. "I tried to write poems like the songs they sang on Seventh Street - gay .
songs, because you had to be gay or die; sad songs, because help being sad sometimes.
