Elijah Cummings laid to rest: Obama, the Clintons, Speaker Pelosi, thousands gather to mourn Maryland Congressman Elijah Cummings, a beloved Civil Rights leader and federal lawmaker from Baltimore who died amid a political fallout with President Trump....By Kathy Wray Coleman, editor-in-chief, Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com, Ohio's most read Black digital newspaper and Black blog
By Kathy Wray Coleman, associate publisher, editor-in-chief
Among the powerful Republicans there was Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.
Several 100 people, including constituent of Cummings congressional district and other members waited outside the church where the federal lawmaker worshipped for decades, before the doors opened at New Psalmist Baptist Church in Baltimore, his funeral drawing thousands of mourners.
Pelosi, Obama and the Clintons were among the speakers, Bill Clinton and Obama eulogizing him.
"His life validates the things we tell ourselves about what's possible in this country," said Obama, the nation's first Black president and a former junior U.S. senator from Illinois.
Bill Clinton, who, like Obama, was president when Cummings served in Congress, said voters in Baltimore and from Cummings' largely Black congressional district sent a warrior to Congress to fight for public policy changes for the betterment of Americans and the most vulnerable, Baltimore a majority Black impoverished city.
"You did a good thing," said Bill Clinton, a Rhodes Scholar. "Thanks for sending him."
Speaker Pelosi, who served alongside of Cummings his entire time in Congress, told the audience that Cummings was a Civil Rights icon who "always made room at the table for others."
A sharecropper's son who rose from humble beginnings to become a respected and seasoned member of the U.S. House of Representatives, died last week at the age of 68, and amid a political fallout with President Trump.
President Trump skipped both the funeral and the capital memorial service.
Cummings' death comes as the 2020 election nears and Trump faces an impeachment inquiry in the House, impeachment proceedings motivated by his quid pro quo demand for Ukraine leaders to dig up dirt on Democratic front-runner Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden, and relative to an associated complaint from a whistleblower regarding the foreign relations fiasco.
A former member of the Maryland House of Representatives and a Black federal lawmaker and member of the U.S. House of Representatives since 1996 who led Maryland's largely Black 7th congressional district until his death on Oct 17 at John Hopkins Hospital, and who was passionate in particular about his hometown city of Baltimore, Cummings had served as the chair of the Committee on Oversight and Reform since January 2019 at the appointment of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
He had been sick with health problems for a while, sources said.
He was so well respected nationwide that he received 12 honorary doctoral degrees from universities across the United States, most recently an honorary doctorate of public service from the University of Maryland, College Park in 2017
The lawmaker supported the Smart Savings Act, a bill that would make the default investment in the Thrift Savings Plan (TSP) an age-appropriate target date asset allocation investment fund (L Fund) instead of the Government Securities Investment Fund (G Fund)
Speaking at the 2016 Democratic National Convention, Cummings said "our party does not just believe, but understands, that Black Lives Matter. But we also recognize that our community and our law enforcement work best when they work together.
Though Cummings was one of the few Black Democrats who attended the president's inauguration in January of 2017, the two were repeatedly at odds since that time, the conflict intensifying after the Dems won back control of the House during the November 2018 midterm elections.
The conflict grew even further as Cummings tightened oversight of the president, including berating a Homeland Security official at a Congressional hearing on its administrative policy of separating migrant families at the southern border.
And after the congressman began probing Trump's reporting of his finances and potential conflicts of interest, the president's disdain for Cummings escalated, Trump publicly tweeting that the respected Black member of Congress was a "racist," and a "brutal bully."
The petty president then heightened the controversy by saying Baltimore is no place where anybody would want to live, a slap in the face at Black people, his critics say.
Black leaders, including Congressional Democrats, quickly came to Cummings' defense, Cummings himself telling Trump that he has turned his back on the city of Baltimore and other predominantly Black major American cities.
Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com, Ohio's most read Black digital newspaper and Black blog.Tel: (216) 659-0473 and Email: editor@clevelandurbannews.com. Kathy Wray Coleman, editor-in-chief, and who trained for 17 years at the Call and Post Newspaper in Cleveland, Ohio. We interviewed former president Barack Obama one-on-one when he was campaigning for president. As to the Obama interview, CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE AT CLEVELAND URBAN NEWS.COM, OHIO'S LEADER IN BLACK DIGITAL NEWS.
.jpeg)
Comments