Remembering Elijah Cummings
- Dailyn Simmons
- Oct 22, 2019
- 2 min read
Photo from: Elijah Cummings for Congress
To being elected into his first office in 1983 in Maryland and rising as a U.S. diplomat in the position of representative for the 7th congressional district, Elijah Eugene Cummings had built a reputation for being committed to the state he served and took his last breath Oct.17 at 68 from health issues.
Cummings was born January 18, 1951 Baltimore, Maryland to a sharecropping family as the third child of seven children and faced various challenges growing up.
“I spent some time in Special Ed when I was in elementary school,” said Cummings in a 60 Minutes 2019 interview. “And we had a new teacher to come in and his name was Hollist Posey when I was in the 6th grade and you know he said ‘son you look very sad and I said I am sad. He said why? I feel like a caged bird’.”
From this experience, Cummings was pushed by this teacher and the local librarians in his integrated library through tutoring to help him leave Special Education.
Eventually, he went on to attend Howard University earning his bachelor’s degree in political science in 1973 and graduated from the University of Maryland School of Law earning his juris doctor in 1976.
Within his career, Cummings used his platform for many things.
“For decades, I have been a leader in addressing the devastating impact of HIV/AIDS, both here and abroad. Although this disease wreaks havoc on the lives of all human beings, it is particularly devastating with the African American community,” Cummings said in 2008 Washington, D.C. for National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day.
In recent times, Cummings had advocated for voting rights, changes in immigration policies regarding children being split from parents at the border, and for the impeachment inquiry of President Trump.
Aside from his political career, Cummings had many relationships ranging from family to friends within his community.
He had been married twice. His first wife was Joyce Matthews and later they divorced with one daughter from their union. In 2008, he remarried to Maya Rockeymore, another Maryland politician and they have no children from their union.
Prior to his second marriage, Cummings has a daughter and son from another relationship.
Cummings was an avid member of New Psalmist Baptist Church and was considered a friend to pastor Bishop Thomas according to ABC2 WMAR Baltimore News and spoke of his influence in the church.
“To our members he was the representative that spoke for them who articulated their case who represented them in places they could not go and spoke to the changes they could not effect,” said Thomas.
Elijah Cummings’ body is set to lie in both Morgan State University on Wednesday and in Statutory Hall the in U.S. State Capitol on Thursday. His official funeral will be held at the church he attended Oct.25, 2019
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