Elijah Cummings, a 23-year veteran of the U.S. House of Representatives, died in the early-morning hours of Thursday, October 17, according to the Baltimore Sun. The Maryland Democrat’s illustrious career in politics extends well beyond his time in the U.S. Congress, where his district considered him a “surrogate mayor.” Born in Baltimore in 1951, he spent his life uplifting his hometown’s black community.

Cummings also had a flare for oratory. A powerful, direct speaker with a penchant for telling it like it is, he was a force to be reckoned with in House hearings and stump speeches, but he could also be as sweet as a flower or downright inspiring when meeting with future leaders in classrooms.

As we remember Cummings at his passing, here are some of the most powerful things he had to say.

On lessons from his family

In a 2019 interview with 60 Minutes, Cummings talked about his childhood in Baltimore, where his parents — sharecroppers from South Carolina — had moved to give their kids a better life. Together with six other siblings, Cummings and his parents lived in a three-room house.

"My mom and dad, although they may not have had a lot of formal education, they were two of the most brilliant people that I know," Cummings said in the interview of his parents, who were taken out of school in the fourth grade to work the fields. "They were always looking for teaching opportunities."

His parents weren’t the only ones with things to teach him. Cummings also told 60 Minutes that his grandmother helped light a fire in him to fight for black folks.

"She says, 'Your daddy, he been waiting and waiting and waiting for a better day,'" Cummings told 60 Minutes. "She said, 'He's going to wait, and he's going to die.' She said, 'Don't you wait.'"

On his experiences in special-education classes

Cummings could be very frank about something frequently stigmatized: his time spent in special-education classes as a student.

"I was in special ed, but I felt like I was a caged bird. I felt like I could do better," Cummings told a group of special-education students during his visit to a classroom in 2012. "I made sure I mastered my special-ed lessons. I made sure I listened to my teacher. I made sure I did my homework.”

Cummings also said he was challenged over his career aspirations at the time. He told the students at that meeting that when he said he wanted to be a lawyer at age 10 or 11, his guidance counselor asked him, "Who do you think you are?"

"They are words that pain me to this day," Cummings said. "I'm now almost 62, and I still feel the pain from these words.’

"When I became a lawyer, no one asked me if I had spent some time in special ed," Cummings continued. "All they wanted was a good lawyer.”

"The same little boys that bullied me, the same ones that beat me up, they became my clients," he said.

On his hometown of Baltimore

Cummings was an icon for the city of Baltimore, and he was a leader through some of its toughest times, including the killing of Freddie Gray, who died in police custody in 2015.

"There are two Baltimores. There are clearly two Baltimores," Cummings said at a church event in a speech about the racialized economic disparities in the city.

He shared the story of a 15-year-old who told him she couldn’t pursue her dream of becoming a nurse because her school only had two math teachers and said that, during a meeting with gang members after Gray’s death, he had been told that economic hardship and necessity was driving criminal activity.