Political Quotes

“I thank the gentleman for leading this Special Order. Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairwoman of our caucus for giving us somewhat of a resume of the life of Elijah Cummings. Most people know that Elijah Cummings' roots were deep in South Carolina soil. I happen to represent the county in which his parents were born. They came north to Baltimore, seeking a better life for their children. They were sharecroppers in the county that gave birth to Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas. The interesting thing about the people of that community who formed the movement that spurred a national and, I dare say, international movement was the simplicity of their lives and their aspirations. The Brown case was not about integrating schools; it was about getting a schoolbus for their children. The people who came together were people of modest means. The case got the name of Briggs v. Elliott. Harry Briggs was an ordinary man working at a filling station making $23 a week; his wife, Eliza, making $18 a week as a chambermaid in a motel. That is the community that Elijah Cummings' family left. He came back to that community often, and we would talk about it: the dreams and aspirations of his parents and what they instilled in him. They were both evangelicals. Elijah took on the mantle of an evangelist. He didn't work to prepare people for the hereafter. He worked to prepare people for the here and now.…”