Thursday, October 17, 2019

Elijah Cummings, esteemed longtime Baltimore congressman, has died at 68

Cummings in 1973
CBS News  "Representative Elijah Cummings, of Baltimore, died early Thursday at the age of 68, his office said. Cummings passed away at Johns Hopkins Hospital at 2:45 a.m. from "complications concerning longstanding health challenges," his office said.
"He hadn't returned to work after having a medical procedure that he said would only keep him away for about a week, The Baltimore Sun noted.
"Maya Rockeymoore Cummings, the chairwoman of the Maryland Democratic Party and Cummings' wife, said in a statement that Cummings was "an honorable man who proudly served his district and the nation with dignity, integrity, compassion and humility." . . .




Photo: Elijah Cummings attacked in the Selma, Alabama civil rights march.

Who is U.S. Rep. Elijah Cummings?  "Cummings was born in 1951 and raised in Baltimore, where he still resides today, according to his congressional biography.
"He is one of seven children to parents Robert Cummings Sr. and Ruth Elma Cummings, née Cochran, both of whom worked as sharecroppers in South Carolina on land where their family’s ancestors were enslaved. The couple moved to Baltimore in the late 1940s. 
"As a child, Cummings struggled in elementary school and was assigned to special education courses. However, after showing promise in high school at City College, he won Phi Beta Kappa honors at Howard University, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in political science. He graduated from the University of Maryland School of Law and passed the state bar in 1976.
"According to his congressional biography, the congressman is an active member of New Psalmist Baptist Church and is married to Dr. Maya Rockeymoore Cummings, who was elected chair of the Maryland Democratic Party in December." . . .


Cummings at his older brother's graduation
UK Daily Mail: A sharecropper's son, Cummings was elected to the Maryland House of Delegates in 1982 and rose through the ranks before winning a US congressional seat in 1996.

From 2015: Congressman John Lewis was one of the many civil rights leaders who marched in Selma, Alabama 50 years ago today, and throughout the day, he has tweeted a dramatic recounting of the March and the horror of Bloody Sunday.
Not America's finest moment.
Elijah Cummings marching with the group.


Somehow our institutions are so much better than we have been; America had the image of Abraham Lincoln superseded by that of these angry police and the images of Dr. Martin Luther King and Elijah Cummings by Al Sharpton and Maxine Waters.  TD

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