Cummings, Elijah, 1951-2019

CUMMINGS, Elijah Eugene, a Representative from Maryland; born in Baltimore, Md., January 18, 1951; graduated from Baltimore City College High School, Baltimore, Md., 1969; B.S., Howard University, Washington, D.C., 1973; J.D., University of Maryland School of Law, Baltimore, Md., 1976; lawyer, private practice; chief judge, Maryland Moot Court Board; member of the Maryland state house of delegates, 1983-1996, and speaker pro tempore, 1995-1996; elected as a Democrat to the One Hundred Fourth Congress, by special election, to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of United States Representative Kweisi Mfume; reelected to the twelve succeeding Congresses and served until his death (April 16, 1996-October 17, 2019); chair, Committee on Oversight and Reform (One Hundred Sixteenth Congress); died on October 17, 2019, in Baltimore, Md.; lay in state in National Statuary Hall, October 24, 2019.

<p>Elijah Eugene Cummings (January 18, 1951 – October 17, 2019) was an American politician and civil rights advocate who served in the United States House of Representatives for Maryland's 7th congressional district from 1996 until his death in 2019, which he was succeeded by his predecessor Kweisi Mfume. A member of the Democratic Party, Cummings previously served in the Maryland House of Delegates from 1983 to 1996.</p>

<p>Cummings served in the Maryland House of Delegates from 1983 to 1996. In 1996, he was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. The district he represented includes just over half of the city of Baltimore, including most of the majority-black precincts of Baltimore County, as well as most of Howard County.</p>

<p>Cummings served as the chair of the Committee on Oversight and Reform from January 2019 until his death in October of the same year and was succeeded by fellow Democrat Carolyn Maloney to chair the committee.</p>

<p>U.S. Congressman Elijah E. Cummings was born in Baltimore, Maryland on January 18, 1951. He received a B.A. in political science from Howard University (Washington, D.C.) in 1973 and a J.D. from the University of Maryland (College Park) in 1976. Cummings, one of seven children of working-class parents who had migrated from a farm in South Carolina, grew up in a rental house, but often recalled the family “scrimping and saving” to buy their own home in a desegregated neighborhood. When the family moved into that home in 1963, when Cummings was twelve years of age, he recalled that he had “never played on grass before.”</p>

<p>Cummings won his first public office in 1983 when he was elected to the state House in Maryland. In 1995, he was named speaker pro tem, the highest state office ever held by a black Marylander. During his thirteen years in the Maryland legislature, Cummings achieved a reputation “as both a dedicated liberal and a skilled census-builder.” Cummings represented a predominately black district in West Baltimore where he was a supporter of better inner-city health care and gun control. He also worked to get private sector employers involved in partnerships with the government to enhance urban economic development and improve local schools, and he helped lead the fight to ban liquor advertisements from inner-city billboards. Cummings also led legislative efforts in the Maryland House to prevent and treat AIDS and to establish a “boot camp” program to help former prison inmates find jobs. He pushed the connection of all schools, but especially those in minority communities, to the internet.</p>

<p>In February 1996, the popular Democratic incumbent in Maryland’s Seventh District, Kwesi Mfume, resigned from the U.S. House to become president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). Cummings won the Democratic primary defeating 26 black and white opponents. Then, in April, he handily defeated his Republican opponent, Kenneth Konder, with more than 80 percent of the votes and earned the right to complete Mfume’s term in the 104th Congress.</p>