US House Rep. Elijah Cummings (D – MD) has died at the age of 68 from “complications concerning longstanding health challenges.”
He spent over two decades representing a Maryland district that includes some of the worst sections of Baltimore.
And while we’ve had our share of differences with Rep. Cummings, including his position on life issues, we do not translate that in any way to devaluing his life.
The son of a sharecropper, Cummings became a lawyer and then judge. He was elected to the Maryland House of Delegates in 1983, where he served until 1996 and in 1995 became the first African-American to serve as speaker pro tempore.
He was elected to the House of Representatives in a 1996 special election to fill the seat vacated when Rep. Kweisi Mfume left Congress to head the NAACP.
Our thoughts and prayers go out to the people who cared about him, his friends, and his colleagues.
