Karen Thompson-Braden wore a black hat emblazoned with the logo of Delta Sigma Theta, her college sorority. She knew Cummings for years through her work as president of the Grove Park Improvement Association. She remembered how he was not only “instrumental” in the group’s work but also intervened when an elementary school teacher in her part of the city was reported to be treating minority students unfairly. He managed to get some of the children transferred to a different class, she said.