It did not matter whether the temperature outside was 10^o or 95^o. When Mr. Robert Cummings returned home from his job at Davidson Chemical, he would always sit in his car for at least an hour.

We did not understand why our father would wait there alone, his eyes closed, sitting in silence. After working so hard all day, we wondered, why didn't he rush inside to his loving wife and 7 eager children, to his dinner and his easy chair?

During my entire childhood, however, we never disturbed Father's homecoming ritual. We may not have known why he waited, but we knew that this was his private time....

About 6 years ago, I finally asked Dad about this lingering mystery from my youth. His gentle smile almost hiding the memories which live still in the depths of his eyes, he paused for just a moment before answering.

"Those white guys at the plant always gave me the most demeaning jobs," he recalled. "They called me everything but a child of God, and by the end of the day, I was so filled with anger that I needed a cooling off period before I could come inside to my family. I spent that time alone so that I would not take the frustration and anger I was feeling out on you."

It worked. During my 48 years on this earth, I have never heard my father raise his voice to my mother. He understood what is required to be a gentle man, and I love him for his foresight and his patience.

Too many women and children, you see, are being injured and killed in their own homes. Domestic violence plagues all racial and ethnic groups - and our community is no exception.

In 1996, for example, a Commonwealth Fund survey revealed that more than one in every six African American women had been physically abused during the prior 5 years. The Archives of Internal Medicine recently reported that over 53% of all American women who die violently in their own homes are Black.

These statistics are painful to acknowledge, but the damage is far too lasting for us to remain silent. Women we know are being injured by men they once trusted.

As if any terror could be more chilling, we also know that the children who are caught in these violent relationships are being taught a false lesson about life. If we allow them to believe that violence is an acceptable - even unavoidable - response to their problems, we are perpetuating a cycle of social devastation which no community could survive.

We are beginning to teach the truth about domestic violence. In FY1999, over $270 million in federal funding will be directed to law enforcement and prosecution programs, sending the message that domestic violence is a serious crime. An additional $156 million will help to fund battered women's shelters and other community efforts.

I have joined Representatives John Conyers, Jr., Constance Morella and a growing bipartisan coalition in the Congress as co-sponsors of The Violence Against Women Act of 1999 and the companion proposal to reauthorize its 1994 predecessor. America is confronted by an epidemic which requires a comprehensive public response to expand the legal protection and social support we owe to our mothers, our sisters and our daughters.

By his character and conduct, my Dad raised his family to know that a home must be a protected place if children are to prosper. In our local neighborhoods and the halls of Congress, America is relearning the lesson his life exemplifies.