Elijah Cummings: “one interesting story, when I think about my mother and father, neither one of them got past elementary school. My…”

“one interesting story, when I think about my mother and father, neither one of them got past elementary school. My father was a laborer and my mother was a domestic. My father had the dream of becoming a homeowner. He found a beautiful house. He is a very prayerful man, and so he took all seven of his kids up to that house with my mother, and we literally kneeled in front of the house and prayed. I kid my father sometimes, I think the police thought we were protesting or something, but he had a dream. He said we would get that house. About a year later, we got the house. The interesting thing about it, though, is I was only about 10 years old. But to this day, some 40 years later, I still remember the name of the person who sold the house to us, and I also remember the previous owner and the broker. That says a lot. As a little kid, I remember that. And I will never forget going from a 2-bedroom house to a 4-bedroom house. And to have a bedroom where there were only two of us sleeping instead of four of us sleeping. When we talk about children, it is not the deed, it is the memory that is empowering; and those are powerful memories, just the gentlewoman's are. It is interesting, housing lifts not only you, but generations of you yet unborn. That is very, very special.…”