…there’s nothing weak about kindness and compassion. There’s nothing weak about looking out for others. There’s nothing weak about being honorable. You’re not a sucker to have integrity and to treat others with respect.
Barack Obama, speaking about late Rep. Elijah Cummings
Barack Obama Eulogy Transcript
To the bishop and first lady and the new [Salmas 00:00:43] family… To the Cummings family. Maya, Mr. President, Madam Secretary, Madam Speaker, Governor, friends, colleagues, staff.
The seeds on good sower. The Parable of the Sower tells us, stands for those with a noble and good heart, who hear the word, retain it, and by persevering produce a crop. The seed on good sower. Elijah Cummings came from good sower, and in this sturdy frame goodness took root.
His parents were sharecroppers from the South. They picked tobacco and strawberries and then sought something better in this city, south Baltimore. Robert worked shifts at a plant and Ruth cleaned other people’s homes. They became parents of seven. Preachers to a small flock. I remember I had the pleasure of meeting Elijah’s mother, Ruth, and she told me she prayed for me every day, and I knew it was true. And I felt better for it. Sometimes people say they’re praying for you, and you don’t know. They might be praying about you, but you don’t know if they’re praying for you. But I knew Ms. Ruth was telling the truth. So they were the proverbial salt of the earth and they passed on that strength and that grit, but also that kindness and that faith to their son.
As a boy Elijah’s dad made him shine his shoes and tie his tie, and they’d go to the airport, not to board their planes, but to watch others do it. I remember Elijah telling me this story. Robert would say, “I have not flied. I may not fly, but you will fly one day. We can’t afford it right now, but you will fly.” His grandmother, as Elijah relayed it, and as grandmothers do, was a little more impatient with her advice. “Your daddy,” she said, “he’d been waiting and waiting and waiting for a better day. Don’t you wait.” Elijah did not wait.
Against all odds Elijah earned his degrees. He learned about the rights that all people in this country are supposed to possess. With a little help, apparently, from Perry Mason Elijah became a lawyer to make sure that others had rights, and his people had their God given rights. And from the State house to the House of Representatives, his commitment to justice and the rights of others would never, ever waiver. Elijah’s example, the son of parents who rose from nothing to carve out just a little something. The public servant who toiled to guarantee the least of us have the same opportunities that he had earned. A leader who once said he’d die for his people even as he lived every minute for them. His life validates the things we tell ourselves about what’s possible in this country. Not guaranteed, but possible. The possibility that our destinies are not pre-ordained, but rather through our works and our dedication and our willingness to open our hearts to God’s message of love for all people, we can live a purposeful life. That we can reap about a full harvest, that we are neither sentenced to wither among the rocks, nor assured a bounty, but we have a capacity, the chance as individuals and as a nation to root ourselves in good soil.
Elijah understood that. That’s why he fought for justice. That’s why he embraced this beloved community of Baltimore. That’s why he went on to fight for the rights and opportunities of forgotten people all across America, not just in his district. He was never complacent, for he knew that without clarity of purpose and a steadfast faith and the dogged determination demanded by our liberty, the promise of this nation can wither. Complacency, he knew was not only corrosive for our collective lives, but for our individual lives. It’s been remarked that Elijah was a kind man.
I tell my daughters, and I have to say listening to Elijah’s daughter speak, that got me choked up. I’m sure those of you who have sons feel the same way, but there’s something about daughters and their father. And I was thinking I’d want my daughters to know how much I love them, but I’d also want them to know that being a strong man includes being kind. That there’s nothing weak about kindness and compassion. There’s nothing weak about looking out for others. There’s nothing weak about being honorable. You’re not a sucker to have integrity and to treat others with respect.
I was sitting here, and I was just noticing the honorable Elijah E. Cummings, and this is a title that we confer on all kinds of people who get elected to public office. We’re supposed to introduce them as honorable, but Elijah Cummings was honorable before he was elected office. There’s a difference. There’s a difference if you were honorable and treated others honorably outside the limelight, on the side of a road, in a quiet moment counseling somebody you work with, letting your daughters know you love them.
You know, as President, I knew I could always count on Elijah being honorable and doing the right thing. And people have talked about his voice. There is something about his voice that just made you feel better. You know, there’s some people that we have a deep baritone, a prophetic voice. And when it was good times, and we achieved victories together, that voice and that laugh was a gift. But you needed it more during the tough times. When the path ahead looked crooked, when obstacles abounded. When I entertained doubts or I saw those who were in the fight start to waiver, that’s when Elijah’s voice mattered most. And more than once during my presidency when the economy still looked like it might plunge into depression. When the healthcare bill was pronounced dead in Congress, I would watch Elijah rally his colleagues. “The cost of doing nothing isn’t nothing,” he would say, and folks would remember why they entered into public service.
Our children are the living messengers we send to a future we will never see. He would say, and he would remind all of us that our time is too short not to fight for what’s good and what is true and what is best in America. 200 years to 300 years from now he would say people will look back at this moment and they will ask the question, what did you do? And hearing him, we would be reminded that it falls upon each of us to give voice to the voices and comfort to the sick and opportunity to those not born to it and to preserve and nurture our democracy.
Elijah Cummings was a man of noble and good heart. His parents and his faith planted the seeds of hope and love and compassion and the righteousness and that good soil of his. He has harvested all the crop that he could, for the Lord has now called Elijah home to give His humble, faithful servant rest.
And it now falls on us to continue his work so that other young boys and girls in Baltimore, across Maryland, across the United States, and around the world, might, too, have a chance to grow and to flourish. That’s how we will honor him. That’s how we will remember him. That’s what he would hope for. May God bless the memory of the very honorable Elijah Cummings, and may God bless this city and this state and this nation that he loved. God bless you. Thank you.
