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The "Up Hill Climb" of Elijah Cummings
It was hard to pick just 4 paragraphs from this Baltimore Magazine article. The whole story is a wonderul read about Elijah Cummings' inspired leadership.
Up Hill Climb
October, 2014
Carrying lessons learned from his humble roots, Elijah Cummings has become a national leader on Capitol Hill....
“My father, a former South Carolina sharecropper who moved north so his children could be better off, worked long hours at Davidson Chemical doing manual labor,” recalls the 63-year-old congressman, sitting in his midtown Baltimore office. “And he was happy to work, and to work overtime to make money to support us. But when he came home, he used to sit in his car, sometimes for an hour. Everyday. It didn’t matter if it was 80 degrees, 90 degrees, or 5 degrees.
“We all knew not to disturb him, and it’s funny, too, there were not a lot of cars in the street in those days,” laughs Cummings, himself a tireless worker by all accounts. Years later, Cummings continues, he asked his father—although he suspected the reason—why he sat in the car. “He told me that he was often treated badly at work, dealing with discrimination, and he didn’t want to bring those things, any bitterness, into our home,” Cummings says, pausing and getting emotional. “He did not want to make us victims as well. He always came into the house with a gentle smile.”
October, 2014
Carrying lessons learned from his humble roots, Elijah Cummings has become a national leader on Capitol Hill....
“My father, a former South Carolina sharecropper who moved north so his children could be better off, worked long hours at Davidson Chemical doing manual labor,” recalls the 63-year-old congressman, sitting in his midtown Baltimore office. “And he was happy to work, and to work overtime to make money to support us. But when he came home, he used to sit in his car, sometimes for an hour. Everyday. It didn’t matter if it was 80 degrees, 90 degrees, or 5 degrees.
“We all knew not to disturb him, and it’s funny, too, there were not a lot of cars in the street in those days,” laughs Cummings, himself a tireless worker by all accounts. Years later, Cummings continues, he asked his father—although he suspected the reason—why he sat in the car. “He told me that he was often treated badly at work, dealing with discrimination, and he didn’t want to bring those things, any bitterness, into our home,” Cummings says, pausing and getting emotional. “He did not want to make us victims as well. He always came into the house with a gentle smile.”
Elijah in a tie at a family event.
“Of the many things I learned from my father—and neither he nor my mother completed elementary school because they went to work in the fields—was to treat everyone with equal respect and not to speak or act out of anger,” Cummings says. “Because when you do, the person only hears your tone, they don’t get the message.
“And,” Cummings adds, tapping a finger to the table for emphasis, “you’ll lose sight of the bigger picture. You’ll get so caught up in who you are fighting, you’ll forget what you are fighting for—and it’s the what that is important.”
“And,” Cummings adds, tapping a finger to the table for emphasis, “you’ll lose sight of the bigger picture. You’ll get so caught up in who you are fighting, you’ll forget what you are fighting for—and it’s the what that is important.”
Cummings at his older brother’s graduation.
https://www.baltimoremagazine.com/2014/10/13/up-hill-climb