Thursday, March 28, 2024

Elijah Cummings is First African American Lawmaker to Lie in State in Congress – LIVE VIDEO

*The now-late Elijah Cummings who represented Baltimore in Congress earned the right to be referred to as “a giant” when he became the first African-American lawmaker to lie in state in the dome of the Capitol.

Congressman Cummings, who died a week ago today,  was carried up the steps of the Capitol in a flag-draped coffin by a military honor guard, with his widow Maya Rockeymoore Cummings waiting at the top of the steps, hand on heart.

Inside Statuary Hall, his coffin was placed on the same catafalque used in Abraham Lincoln’s funeral.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called him “truly a master of the House,” and Senate Minority leader Chuck Schumer said: ‘Our country has lost a giant.’

Republican Congressman Mark Meadows spoke about his “unexpected” friendship with Cummings.

“This place and this country would be better served with a few more unexpected friendships. I know I’ve been blessed by one,” Meadows.

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Elijah Cummings - lie in state - widow Maya Rockeymoore Cummins
Maya Rockeymoore Cummins stood hand on heart as her husband’s coffin was carried to the top of the Capitol steps (Getty)

Rockeymoore Cummings, who is the chair of the Maryland Democratic Party, has said that her husband worked until the end of his life because of his belief that “our democracy was the highest and best expression of our collective humanity and that our nation’s diversity was our promise, not our problem.”

The House Oversight and Reform Committee chairman, a Democrat and 23-year House veteran, Cummings was a key figure in the impeachment inquiry into President Trump and a recent target of intense criticism by the President. He led multiple investigations of Trump’s dealings, including probes in 2019 relating to the president’s family members serving in the White House.

The public will be allowed to pay their respects to Cummings later on Thursday. Only two African-Americans have lain in the Dome before: Rosa Parks in 2005 and in 1998, Capitol Hill Police officer Jacob Chestnut, murdered by a gunman while on duty along with another officer.

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