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What Would Elijah Say?
As cities burn and protestors storm streets across America in reaction to the ongoing slaughter of black and brown people by law enforcement, many have asked what my late husband, Congressman Elijah Cummings, would say in this moment. I think he would urge protesters to “focus on what they are fighting for” and not fall into the trap of letting anger and destructive actions distract from their goal.
As shown when he walked the streets of Baltimore with protesters during the Freddie Gray unrest in 2015, he deeply respected the First Amendment freedom of expression and right to protest. After all, the reason he was standing on that intersection during that time was to prevent potentially chaotic and violent clashes between the police in riot gear and the irate mostly black male protesters whose pent-up frustrations with law enforcement threatened to boil over. As a black man in America who grew up in a segregated and deeply unequal Baltimore, Elijah understood their pain.
He knew that after centuries of oppression, young African Americans especially want the freedom to live in a society where they aren’t targeted based on race, gender, and class, where their opportunities to pursue their dreams and live their best lives aren’t undermined by what they look like, how much money is in their pockets or what zip code they live in; and where the rules that govern their lives aren’t…
