Reflecting on the legacy of President Barack Obama, Rep. Elijah Cummings spoke Tuesday of his pride in what America’s first black president has accomplished.
“He has elevated African-American people so much,” Cummings told CNN’s Chris Cuomo on “New Day.” “And Michelle Obama, as they say, put the O in Obama.”
“I cannot tell you how proud I am of them,” the Maryland Democrat added.
Cummings said Obama’s election gave some of his Baltimore neighbors hope that they previously lacked.
“I look at the guys in my neighborhood. I live in the inner city. They’re pressing their chest out a little more,” he said. “They used to think the only thing they could become is a basketball player, a football player. Now they know they can become the President of the United States.”
Cummings said he could not have imagined that Obama would go from the Senate to the Oval Office.
“He said back then, ‘I’m going to win.’ But I never dreamed it,” he said.
Obama will speak Tuesday from his hometown of Chicago, the city where he declared victory in 2008 and 2012, to give his farewell address.
Cummings said he looks forward to the President sharing his successes.
“I want to hear what the president has talk about what he accomplished. I have seen Republicans torpedo every single thing he has done,” he said. “They have stood in his way over and over.”
The lawmaker hopes Obama doesn’t spend his post-White House years as a spectator but as an influencer.
Source: CNN | Eugene Scott
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