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Congressman
Elijah E. Cummings |
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Congressman
Elijah E. Cummings |
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by Congressman Elijah E. Cummings
When I teach my children about
ABlack History,@ I carefully emphasize that we are talking about a struggle for justice that has continued to this day.A
It is right to honor the heroes of our past,@ I say to them, Abut the purpose of teaching you Black History is to prepare you for your own challenges. Soon, it will be your time to create history.@I empower my children by connecting them to the history of their own family. When we honor the memories of Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglass and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., we also take the time to honor Robert and Ruth Cummings.
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Your grandparents were denied a formal education by the demands of the share cropping system and deprived of the ballot by the State of South Carolina,@ I inform my children. AThey have worked their entire lives to create a future for you free of those injustices.@A
Remember Selma and Birmingham,@ I tell them, Abut do not forget 1968 - the Poor People=s Campaign and the Memphis garbage collectors= strike. Recalling that part of our history will refine your appreciation for the opportunities you have been given and your sense of social obligation....@Our progress toward overcoming legally-enforced prejudice in America has been an accomplishment of monumental proportions. Prejudice, however, was not the only American sin that Dr. King and the movement challenged.
Poverty in America is the fundamental and continuing evil that we have yet to overcome.
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We have moved into an era where we are called upon to raise certain basic questions about the whole society,@ Dr. King declared back in 1968 with insight that remains painfully valid today. AWe are still called upon to give aid to the beggar who finds himself in misery and agony on life=s highway. But one day, we must ask the question of whether an edifice which produces beggars must not be restructured and refurbished. That is where we are now.@Today, the civil rights movement continues in our mission to uplift the lives of all Americans - especially the nation
=s children. Thirty-two years after the events in Memphis, we are working to confront an appalling fact of life in Maryland.In Maryland
B the third most prosperous state in America B 15% of our children live in poverty. The fastest growing group of impoverished children have parents who work, but cannot make ends meet.The Maryland Children
=s Action Network is a statewide, multiracial and ecumenical human rights coalition seeking to help these children by bringing into reality that Arestructured@ society Dr. King envisioned. Educational opportunity - for poor children and for their parents - is a fundamental emphasis of their movement toward justice.We must make America work for all working families. When President Clinton asked us during his State of the Union Address to
Atake a long look ahead and set great goals for our nation," he was proposing that America make good on its promise of opportunity for all.It is our destiny to refute the adage that
Athe poor will always be with us.@ President Clinton=s legislative proposals for expanded education, more accessible health care and movement toward a national living wage begin to answer Dr. King=s 1968 challenge.Educating all American children is central to ending poverty in America. That is why the Congress must pass President Clinton
=s proposal to increase Head Start funding by $1 billion BB the largest funding increase ever proposed.Now is the time for our generation to make history by lifting all American children out of poverty.
The day rapidly approaches when these children will be called to create their own moment in history. If we have taught them well, they will walk the walk toward justice in America
B together.As Senator Robert F. Kennedy once declared: "Few will have the greatness to bend history itself, but each of us can work to change a small portion of events, and in the total of all those acts will be written the history of this generation."
-The Honorable Elijah E. Cummings represents the 7th Congressional District of Maryland in the United States House of Representatives.
