You won’t often hear “swag” or “rear end” uttered from the pulpit at a funeral. But if you were going to, it would certainly be at the funeral for Larry Langford.
Sure, the funeral mass for the flamboyant, charismatic and, yes, polarizing former mayor of Fairfield and Birmingham, held at St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Fairfield on a brisk Monday afternoon, was unabashedly spiritual. Langford, who died on January 4 at the age of 72, converted to Catholicism in 1996 and, according to speaker after speaker, was as vocal about his faith as he was everything else in his life.
The program also featured, of course, a plethora of politicians and resolutions. Speakers included U.S. Representative Terri Sewell, Birmingham mayor Randall Woodfin, Birmingham City Councilor Stephen Hoyt (five other councilors attended, as well) and Jose Perry represnting U.S. Senator Doug Jones, who was unable to attend the service.
“We all thought Larry was our best friend,” said Sewell. “He had big ideas we now enjoy and some take credit for.” (Those last words prompted a few chuckles.)
Woodfin recalled the then-mayor speaking to students in the gym at W.E. Putnam Middle School (“I left that gym thinking I could be mayor,” Woodfin said). He also shared a conversation he had with Langford recently during his final days at Princeton Baptist Hospital in Birmingham. “He had the same fire," the mayor said. "He rattled off a gazillion ideas I should be doing, and told me to come back with a pen and notepad.”
Woodfin ended his remarks by asking former Birmingham mayors William Bell and Bernard Kincaid to stand. “We belong to a very small club," Woodfin said. “We salute a mayor’s mayor.”
“Larry is safe in the arms of Jesus,” said Hoyt. “Sight is a function of the eyes, but vision is a function of the heart. Larry had vision not because he looked but because he could see.”
There were family remembrances, as well.
“He had swag,” said Jared Smothers, one Langford’s two grandsons who spoke. “I went in his closet the other day and saw a couple of things I like.”
“Grandfather taught me how to have a relationship with God and a woman,” he added, evoking much laughter from those packing St. Mary’s pews.
Yet in between the tributes, scriptures, and hymns that had St. Mary’s feeling more Baptist than Catholic, there was a thread of defiance aimed at those who weigh Langford’s transgressions — he spent eight-and-a-half years in federal prison for political corruption before a judge ordered him released on December 28 due to deteriorating health — heavier than the vision that helped shaped Birmingham into what it is today and the impact he had on the lives many residents.
“There were many who can’t stand Larry Langford,” said Rev. Vernon Huguley, pastor of St. Patrick’s Catholic Church, who presided over the near-three-hour service. “But that’s okay because if you can’t say, ‘Amen’, then you’ve got to say ‘ouch.’”
In the eulogy, Rev. Ocie Oden, pastor of Antioch Missionary Baptist Church in Fairfield and perhaps Langford’s closest friend, said while most describe the former mayor as a visionary, he offered four other adjectives:
“He was vocal,” Oden said, “and he didn’t care whether you liked it or not. He was vibrant, probably from all that sugar in him because he liked his sweets. He was victorious. In a [mayoral] race with 10 candidates, he won without a runoff.”
“And he was a victim of inhumane treatment. But thank God he’s been released.”
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“Thank God none of us is the sum of our transgressions,” Sewell said. “Larry Langford died as he lived — with dignity and distinction.”
Mourners began arriving for the noon service at 9 a.m., and by 10:45, the pews on the left side of the church, for non-dignitaries, was almost filled.
Langford’s remains sat in a wooden casket at the front of the sanctuary. Just before 11 a.m., it was opened. He wore a dark suit, accented by a gold-and-black tie. No pictures were allowed but mourners were allowed to walk closer to pay their individual respects. Almost everyone did.
Lena Ferguson Powe McDonald, Langford’s niece, worked for several years, alongside Langford’s wife, Melva, and attorneys Tiffany Johnson Cole and Reginald McDaniel, to free her uncle. After the family processional, the most moving moment of the afternoon came when McDonald lovingly folded the materials in the casket, kissed her uncle and slowly, slowly, slowly closed it.
Later, McDonald opened her own remarks with a saying familiar to those who knew Langford: “The mind can only comprehend what the rear end can endure,” she said, although almost everyone in the church knew that was a church-friendly version of what Langford actually said.
She was critical of those who call Langford’s legacy complex. “It’s actually very simple,” she said. “Uncle told you what he was going to do, and he did it. The complexity lies in your ability to comprehend and interpret it.”
She turned to Woodfin: “He was excited about you,” she said of her uncle. “The best way to honor him is to reach your fullest potential.”
She then address the city council members in the church: “He was ready for you to step up.”
“Fairfield and Birmingham,” she continued, “you’ve got to do better. Just just lost [a Birmingham police] officer. Larry would be ashamed — not of the [perpetrator], but at the people who had the possibility to impact that person’s life but didn’t.”
McDonald added that she reads all of the comments on stories published on AL.com “so no one else in my family has it.”
“So I know what’s said,” she continued. “For those who aimed to hurt our family, you made us stronger. For those who try to make jokes out of the benefits he brought to our city, you benefit from them. But don’t worry, your day will come.”
Langford was buried at Elmwood Cemetery.
This story will be updated