Principled Congressman became leading figure in opposition to Trump presidency

Elijah Cummings, who has died aged 68, was a United States Congressman from Maryland who gained national attention for his principled stands on politically charged issues in the House, his calming effect on anti-police riots in Baltimore, and his forceful opposition to the presidency of Donald Trump.

Cummings, a Democrat, was chairman of the House Oversight and Reform Committee and a leading figure in the Trump impeachment inquiry. He had been out of his office for weeks while recovering from an unspecified medical procedure.

Born to a family of Southern sharecroppers and Baptist preachers, he grew up in the racially fractured Baltimore of the 1950s and 1960s. At 11, he helped integrate a local swimming pool while being attacked with bottles and rocks.

In the Maryland House of Delegates, he became the youngest chairman of the Legislative Black Caucus and the first African American to serve as speaker pro tempore, who presides in the speaker’s absence.

In 1996, he won a seat in the US House of Representatives. He drew national attention as secretary of state Hillary Clinton’s chief defender during 2015 congressional hearings into her handling of the attack on US government facilities in Benghazi, Libya, that killed US ambassador J Christopher Stevens and three other Americans.

He was ‘‘the quintessential speaking-truthto-power representative’’, said Herbert Smith, a Maryland political science professor. ‘‘Cummings has never shied from a very forceful give-and-take.’’

Baltimore’s plight informed Cummings’ life and work on Capitol Hill, a connection exemplified by his response to the death of 25-year-old Freddie Gray in April 2015 and the explosion of outrage that came after it.

Gray died of injuries suffered while riding, improperly secured, in a police van after he was arrested for carrying a knife, in his pocket, that police said was illegal. His death ignited rioting in Baltimore and elevated tensions nationally over perceived racism and excessive violence in law enforcement.

When looting began after the funeral, Cummings rushed, bullhorn in hand, to help assure residents that authorities were taking the case seriously. The bullhorn was emblazoned with a gold label that read, ‘‘The gentleman will not yield.’’ It was a gift from his Democratic colleagues, after an incident during the Benghazi hearings in which he called on Republican committee chairman Trey Gowdy: ‘‘Gentleman, yield! Gentleman, yield! You have made several inaccurate statements.’’

The experience didn’t appear to sour Gowdy’s view of Cummings. ‘‘It’s not about politics to him; he says what he believes. And you can tell the ones who are saying it because it was in a memo they got that morning, and you can tell the ones who it’s coming from their soul. And with Mr Cummings, it’s coming from his soul.’’

The first two years of the Trump administration, 2017 and 2018, were agonising for Cummings, who was battling ill health, including complications of heart surgery, as well as political frustration. He said his efforts to work with Trump and members of the Republican House majority were fruitless. ‘P erhaps if I knew then what I know now, I wouldn’t have had a lot of hope,’’ Cummings later remarked. ‘‘He is a man who quite often calls the truth a lie and calls a lie the truth.’’ After Cummings attacked the president’s immigration policy, Trump retaliated by calling Baltimore a ‘‘disgusting, rat and rodent infested mess’’ and suggested Cummings focus his efforts on cleaning up ‘‘this very dangerous & filthy place’’.

Cummings responded by telling an audience at the National Press Club in Washington: ‘‘Those at the highest levels of government must stop invoking fear, using racist language and encouraging reprehensible behaviour. As a country, we finally must say that enough is enough. That we are done with the hateful rhetoric.’’

Elijah Eugene Cummings was born in Baltimore to a father who worked at a chemical factory, his mother at a pickle factory. The proprietor of a drugstore where Cummings worked paid his application fee to university and regularly sent him $10 with a note that read, ‘‘Hang in there.’’

His first marriage, to Joyce Matthews, ended in divorce after a long separation. In 2008, he married Maya Rockeymoore.

Cummings once said he was driven by his faith and secure in his conviction that history would recognise his resolve to stand up for what he believed was right. ‘‘In the city of Baltimore, there are over a thousand monuments, and not one is erected to memorialise a critic. Every one of the monuments is erected to memorialise one who was severely criticised.’’ – Washington Post

‘‘He is a man who quite often calls the truth a lie and calls a lie the truth.’’

Elijah Cummings on Donald Trump