Elijah Cummings
Jan. 18, 1951 – Oct. 17, 2019
US Representative Elijah Cummings of Baltimore, a committee chairman known for his devotion to Baltimore and civil rights and for blunt and passionate speech-making, died of longstanding health problems early Thursday morning, his office said. He was 68 years old.
Cummings was born in 1951 and raised in Baltimore, where he continued to live. Cummings lived in the Madison Park community in Baltimore and was an active member of the New Psalmist Baptist Church. He was married to Maya Rockeymoore Cummings. They had three children.
He was one of seven children of Robert Cummings Sr. and Ruth Elma Cummings, née Cochran, who were South Carolina sharecroppers on land where their 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 in Washington. 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.
After graduating from law school, Cummings joined a small Baltimore law firm and later set up his own practice, pooling expenses with two other lawyers. He soon transitioned to his second aspiration as a public servant. His longtime mentor is Larry Gibson, the Baltimore attorney and author who was active in the 1960s civil rights movement.
Cummings practiced law for 19 years, served in the Maryland House of Delegates for 14 years, and the US House of Representatives for 23 years.