Congressman Elijah E. Cummings Proudly Representing Maryland's 7th District

(10/28/00 Baltimore AFRO-American Newspaper)

Transforming cycles of heartbreak into cycles of hope

by Congressman Elijah E. Cummings

In just under three months, I will turn 50. That would be a milestone of only personal interest for most Americans, but for those of us who grew up Black and poor in Baltimore during the 1950s and 1960s, achieving that 50^th birthday is like winning the seventh game of the World Series.

One of our greatest achievements in life has been to survive.

Too many of my childhood friends from those long-ago South Baltimore and Edmondson Village neighborhoods were fatally overwhelmed by the same curses that destroyed their own parents. Some were consumed by drugs, some by alcohol or violence .

In most cases, the casualties had been deprived of the parental role models who teach children how valuable their own lives can be. As a result, they were consumed by generational cycles of despair and death.

Now, nearly four decades later, I travel to our schools and churches, talking about how important it is that we do everything with our power to break the heartbreaking cycles that threaten the young people of today. To illustrate that message, I often tell the story of a young man I call "Joe."

As a young child, Joe was forced to watch as his drunken father beat his mother. When that happened, Joe would sink down in a corner of the room, close his eyes and wrap his arms around his legs to make himself as small as possible. Then he would silently rock himself back and forth to ease the pain.

Thirty years later, Joe's wife was murdered, and Joe was accused. They finally found him sitting in a corner of the abandoned building that once was his childhood home. He was just sitting there - arms around his legs - rocking, rocking, rocking . . . .

For three decades, Joe had struggled to bury those frightening childhood memories deep within the hidden recesses of his mind. Finally, however, the image of Joe's long-dead, drunken father had exploded with tragic violence into Joe's adult life.

His story shows that none of us live for this time and place alone. Our deeds today - both bad and good - may appear to occupy only a moment in our children's lives, but the memories will find a place in their minds and fashion the future for generations.

Every day, we create those generational cycles - cycles of heartbreak or cycles of hope. Every day, we create the memories that will affect the lives of generations yet unborn.

That is why I had to accept the invitation from my old friend, Mike Gimbel, to thank the hundreds of Baltimore County residents being honored last Monday at the Health Department's annual Substance Abuse Recognition Luncheon.

Although Baltimore County's struggle against alcohol and drug abuse is far from won, a committed and sophisticated community network is saving young lives.

The center piece of that effort is SADD - Students Against Destructive Decisions - school-based organizations that provide positive, alcohol-free and drug-free activities and engage the students themselves in encouraging their peers to avoid alcohol and drug use.

In Baltimore County, SADD now includes over 5,000 young people in over 125 high school, middle school and elementary school chapters. The County's elementary school SADD clubs are the only such effort in the United States.

Along with the Police Athletic League and the partnership of more than 1000 parents and area businesses that provided alcohol-free prom night parties for over 8,000 students last year, SADD is providing young people with the positive experiences and memories that will serve them well in later life.

Twenty years after Mike Gimbel was named the Baltimore County Bureau of Substance Abuse's first Director, the County's community-based response to alcohol and drug use by our young people is an "overnight success."

We owe Mike Gimbel our gratitude. His diligent, common-sense leadership over two decades has shown us how to transform those heartbreaking cycles into new cycles of hope.

Because of people like Mike Gimbel, more of our young people will survive to live healthy and productive lives. For an aging survivor like me, that is the best 50^th birthday gift I can imagine.

-The Honorable Elijah E. Cummings represents the 7th Congressional District of Maryland in the United States House of Representatives.

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