Before sunrise on Friday, thousands of mourners, some of whom woke up as early as 4 a.m., boarded shuttle buses heading to New Psalmist Baptist Church to attend the funeral of Congressman Elijah Cummings—the passionate Baltimore leader and civil rights advocate who passed away due to ongoing health challenges last week at the age of 68.

“I made it!” one woman said as she climbed the stairs of a bus leaving from one of the surrounding lots in Lochearn. “I always voted for him. This morning I said, ‘I’m not going to miss this.’ This is history.”

As the bus pulled up to the front of the church—where Cummings regularly attended services—just before dawn, a guard of honor marched by thousands of people who had already formed a line that snaked around the entrance and adjacent parking lots.

“I actually did a dry run yesterday to make sure I knew where the church was,” said Cheryl McLeod of Howard County, who was in line just after 7 a.m. “I also went down to the Capitol yesterday and saw him. That’s how much I really honor his trailblazing and fortitude.”

The funeral at New Psalmist followed a memorial at Morgan State University, where Cummings sat on the board of directors, and a public viewing at the U.S. Capitol, where the Congressman became the first African American elected official to lie in state earlier this week. It brought together community members who supported Cummings’ many initiatives in Baltimore and beyond—including affordable health care, equal education opportunities, and social justice issues—as well as friends and colleagues who had personal connections to him.

“I always enjoyed making him sweet potato pies,” said a woman who asked to be identified as Mrs. Copeland, who met Cummings years ago through New Psalmist. “I would take them to his office downtown. He helped me, as a single parent, get my son through college. We just love him, everybody that knew him loves him.”

Phyllis Ayres, Cummings’ neighbor of 20 years and a retired administrative assistant at Maryvale High School, remembers introducing him at the school’s graduation in 2010.

“I’m very fond of him,” she said. “Every time I called him to be a guest speaker, he was always on board. He was a man with great character—that’s why I’m here.”

Friday’s service was also attended by a number of political dignitaries, including former presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, former First Lady and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, Baltimore native and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, Gov. Larry Hogan, former Vice President Joe Biden, U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and U.S. Sens. Ben Cardin, Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris, and Amy Klobuchar.

In addition to many of these politicians, Cummings’ daughters, Adia and Jennifer, and his wife, Maya Rockeymoore Cummings—as chairman of the Maryland Democratic Party, she is expected to be among those who will run for her late husband’s seat—delivered remarks inside the church.

“I have come here today to say two simple words: thank you,” Rockeymoore Cummings said. “Thanks to everyone in the 7th Congressional District. He loved Baltimore City. Baltimore, thank you for everything you did to make him who he was, and for allowing him to rise to greatness.”

Rockeymoore Cummings went on to address President Trump’s attacks on Cummings and the city of Baltimore during the final months of his life.

“While he carried himself with grace and dignity in all public forums, it hurt him,” she said. “One thing you do not know about Congressman Cummings is that he was a man of soul and spirit. He was very empathetic. It was one of the sources of his ability to be a public servant and a man of the people. . . He would have told me, ‘Maya, I don’t want a service at the U.S. Capitol,’ but I felt very strongly that they were trying to tear him down. And we needed to make sure that he went out with the respect and dignity that he deserved.”

Obama followed by saying, “Elijah’s life validates the things we tell ourselves about what’s possible in this country. Not what’s guaranteed, but possible. The possibility that our destinies are not preordained, but rather through our works and dedication.”

Also in attendance was U.S. Congressman and civil rights leader John Lewis, who described Cummings’ passing last week as “a tremendous blow to the struggle to build a fair and just society in America.”

“They all appreciate [Cummings] as much as we do, that’s why they’re here,” said Arnold Landon, sporting an “Obama for President” hat while waiting in line to enter the 4,000-seat church, which was at full capacity by 9:30 a.m. Landon recalled fighting for civil rights in Baltimore alongside Cummings decades ago, mentioning sit-ins they both attended on Lexington Street downtown. “If it wasn’t for Cummings, Obama wouldn’t be able to become president. It started with equal accommodations and equal rights. Politics and civil rights—they go together.”

Not far behind Landon stood Lydia Alexander alongside her 10-year-old daughter, Shylah.

“He’s done so much for the community,” said Shylah, a fifth grader at Margaret Brent Elementary/Middle. “I really thought I should be here. I will always remember that godsend.”

Former presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton will attend and speak at the funeral of Congressman Elijah Cummings in Baltimore on Friday, Cummings’ office has announced.

Cummings, the passionate advocate for civil rights and Baltimore, died a week ago at the age of 68 from complications due to longstanding health challenges.

Other speakers at the Friday service, according to the release from Cummings’ congressional office, include Baltimore native and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, former U.S. Senator and First Lady Hillary Clinton, former NAACP leader and Baltimore congressman Kweisi Mfume, University of Maryland School of Law professor Larry Gibson, former City Health Department commissioner and former head of Planned Parenthood Leana Wen, and several of Cummings’ immediate family members, including his widow Maya Rockeymoore Cummings.

Rockeymoore Cummings, chairwoman of the Maryland Democratic Party, is expected to be among those to run for her late husband’s seat.

An overflowing crowd is expected Friday morning for the 10 a.m. services at New Psalmist Baptist Church in Northwest Baltimore. Bishop Walter S. Thomas Jr., pastor at New Psalmist, where Cummings regularly attended services, will deliver the eulogy.

Thursday, the late Democratic chairman of the House Oversight Committee will lie in state for public viewing at the U.S. Capitol. Born and raised in Baltimore, the son of former South Carolina sharecroppers is the first African American elected official to be so honored.

It is a special recognition that since 1852 has been bestowed less than three dozen times previously for former presidents, statesman, and military leaders in the history of United States. “Of the many things I learned from my father—and neither he nor my mother completed elementary school because they went to work in the fields—was to treat everyone with equal respect and not to speak or act out of anger,” Cummings told us in a 2014 Baltimore profile.

The service at the Capitol will include an arrival ceremony, a scripture reading from Baltimore native and Maryland U.S. Senator Ben Cardin, wreath-laying presentations from leaders of the House and Senate, and music from the Morgan State Gospel Choir. The event will be live streamed and recorded by C-Span.

Yesterday, Morgan State University, where Cummings had sat on the board of directors, hosted a viewing and services for the former legislator that included remarks from two-dozen city and state leaders, including Baltimore native and former Maryland U.S. Senator Barbara Mikulski. Earlier this year, Cummings gave the commencement address to Morgan’s 143rd spring graduating class.

Cummings’ career in public service began in the Maryland House of Delegates, where he served for 14 years and became the first African American in state history to be named speaker pro tem.

Among the mourners at Morgan was 59-year-old Noreen Wright, a nurse, who brought her 9 and 12-year-old grandsons, telling The Washington Post that she wanted them to witness history. “He’s an icon,” Wright said of Cummings. “He’s someone that the next generation can look at to see how it’s supposed to be done.” With tears in her eyes, according to The Post, Wright described Cummings as a modern-day civil rights leader. “He’s like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to me,” she said. “He stood for the rights of people.”

Anyone with siblings knows that besting a brother or sister in sports or winning your parents praise is like a nagging intuition that only grows with age. Thiru and Krishanti Vignarajah are living proof that sibling rivalries never die. One is running for Baltimore state’s attorney and the other is vying to unseat Gov. Larry Hogan. As the children of two immigrant Baltimore City Public School teachers, Thiru and Krishanti are the epitome of the American dream.

After their parents fled civil unrest in Sri Lanka, they sought refuge in the Edmondson Heights neighborhood in Baltimore City. Thiru went on to pursue law at Harvard—becoming the editor of the Harvard Law Review “before Barack Obama made it cool.” And his younger sister, Krishanti, studied political science and molecular cellular and developmental biology at Yale, eventually becoming the policy director for Michelle Obama at the White House. Although wildly successful, the pair says that there was never any pressure from their parents to go to college and do well.

“If you ask my father, he would tell you, they didn’t really know of the Ivy League, and they always kind of encouraged us to realize our potential,” Krishanti said. “But it was never sort of pressure. It was never, ‘You will go to a top notch academic institution.’ I think there was an expectation that we would make something of ourselves and find some way to give back.” 

Neither Krishanti nor Thiru had ever thought about running for public office. For Thiru, it was the Uprising in 2015 following the death of Freddie Gray that piqued his interest in politics. As a former Maryland deputy attorney general, he witnessed firsthand how the increased violence and homicide rates in Baltimore were tearing communities apart.

“It was just gut wrenching and heart breaking,” Thiru said. “I suddenly realized that it was not going to get better unless we had real leadership in the role of the state’s attorney. I just couldn’t sit back and watch anymore.”

For Krishanti, she was asked to run following a keynote address at the Western Maryland Democratic Summit in April 2017 (and was eight months pregnant at the time). A political consultant approached her and said, “You’re not going to like me in five minutes. You’re going to hate me in five months,” and showed Krishanti a crumpled piece of paper with names on it.

“She says, ‘None of these candidates could beat governor Hogan. Fortunately, I’ve just found my candidate. I just need to wait until she delivers her baby,’” she recalls. “It kind of gave me pause. Part of that pause was that, coming out of the Obama administration, and having so many of the accomplishments we worked so hard to achieve either already reversed or threatened to be reversed, made me believe that we needed to be part of the resistance and opposition. Part of it was I was nearly nine months pregnant.”

Now, nearly six weeks away from the primaries, the brother and sister are ready to acknowledge their familial ties within the race. After keeping their relationship out of the race in an effort to “keep the focus on the issues at hand,” Thiru freely prattled on about his admiration for his little sister and all of her accomplishments.

“She’s extraordinary and we have a sibling rivalry like everybody else but there’s no one I would trust more with the biggest responsibilities on the Earth,” he said. “She is as humble as she is brilliant, she is as hardworking as she is charming.”

Neither sibling can ignore the elephant in the room—if they both win their respective seats, will there be a conflict of interest? Baltimore is known for its history of political families—Mitchells, Cardins, Mosbys—but aside from having a longer name, Thiru believes that they are the same as other families that have served. 

“If a brother and sister didn’t disagree, nobody would believe it,” he joked. “There will be issues and subjects in which we may disagree, and we’ll talk about it and we’ll move forward. In some respects, that’s what I would say about a person in government that wasn’t family.”

When the fancy titles are stripped away, and politics are out of the picture, Thiru and Krishanti are just Woodlawn High graduates who enjoy being on the water or taking in a game at Camden Yards. At the end of the day, they are just a brother and sister, who are hoping for the best outcomes for each other in the June 26 primary.

“I’m inspired and proud of what Krish is doing,” Thiru said. “There is a moment that is seizing the country and I think both of us feel this calling. It’s rooted in our unique experiences, we have walked our distinctive paths, but if not now, when? If not here, where? If not us, who?”

At a ceremony this morning, a portrait of Michelle Obama by Baltimore artist Amy Sherald was unveiled at the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C. She was joined onstage with Michelle Obama and former President Barack Obama, as well as New York artist Kehinde Wiley, who was commissioned to paint the official portrait of Barack Obama.

After winning the Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition at the National Portrait Gallery in 2016, Sherald was selected by the gallery to paint its official portrait of Michelle Obama. The piece—which shows a seated Michelle in a long, flowing dress, in Sherald’s trademark style—will remain on display at the gallery through early November.Wiley’s portrait depicts Barack Obama seated amid a flurry of greenery, with vibrant flowers poking through.

In this New York Times article, Holland Cotter says that this unveiling is historically significant, as its the first in a long series of presidential portraiture that depicts two African Americans, and both artists are African American as well. “Ms. Sherald’s image of Mrs. Obama overemphasizes an element of couturial spectacle,” he writes, “but also projects a rock-solid cool.”

Tawanda T. Epps, a fan on Facebook, notes that the skirt in the portrait reflects the patterns of the Gee’s Bend Quilt-makers. On Twitter, Ava DuVernay says the portraits remind her to hope:

Sherald formerly held studio space at the Creative Alliance in Baltimore and now works out of Motor House, a hub for artists and arts groups in Station North. She was also recently selected by High Museum of Art as its 2018 David C. Driskell Prize winner, which recognizes contributions to African-American art.

Mayor Catherine Pugh, Under Armour CEO Kevin Plank, and Baltimore County Executive Kevin Kamenetz joined a host of national dignitaries by signing the “We Are Still In” pledge to reduce greenhouse gas emission in Maryland as detailed in the Paris climate change agreement.

The coalition, led by philanthropist Michael Bloomberg, is an “open letter to the international community” from local and national leaders declaring to continue the fight against global warming. This comes on the heels of President Donald Trump’s June 1 announcement to remove the United States from the agreement of 194 nations to work to hold the warming to below 2 degrees Celsius.

President Trump argues that the deal, as is, “hamstrings” the U.S. and said he plans to pursue renegotiation in an effort to make things “fair” for the country.

“In order to fulfill my solemn duty to the United States and its citizens, the U.S. will withdraw from the Paris climate accord, but begin negotiations to re-enter either the Paris accords or a really entirely new transaction, on terms that are fair to the United States,” Trump said at a press conference.

As of June 9, there are 178 cities and counties, 272 colleges and universities, and more than 1,300 private companies that have committed to “working together to take forceful action and to ensure that the U.S. remains a global leader in reducing emissions.”

The U.S. is the second largest greenhouse gas emitter in the world, and now joins Syria and Nicaragua as the only countries refusing to commit to the agreement. Although there is no penalty for withdrawing, the details of the agreement signed in 2015 by President Barack Obama, says that the earliest any country is eligible to withdraw is November 2020.

Among the list of private companies joining the “We Are Still In” pledge is Under Armour. One day after Trump’s announcement, CEO Kevin Plank released a statement asserting his disappointment with the decision.

“Climate change is real and must be taken seriously by our business community, our customers, our neighbors, and our elected officials,” he said. “Sustainability has always been part of our DNA: it’s integral to how we live and work and is essential to our environment. As a business leader concerned with creating American jobs, I disagree with the decision to exit the Paris accord.”

The impact on local jobs is also something that concerns Carl Simon, the interim executive director at environmental nonprofit Blue Water Baltimore. 

“The economic future of Baltimore is supported, strengthened, and enhanced by focusing on the rapidly growing renewable energy sector,” he explained. “There are thousands of jobs that could be, and are being, created due to strong environmental policies.”

He also added that climate change is an especially oppressing issue for a coastal city like Baltimore.

“Factually, the rate of flooding here is increased due to climate change,” he said. “Science shows the Inner Harbor, Dundalk, and other coastal parts of Baltimore flood more than they used to due to manmade climate change.”

Mayor Pugh said that Baltimore City would adopt a Climate Action Plan and Disaster Preparedness Plan that will focus on lowering the city’s impact on the environment.

“Our diverse natural ecosystems, including the Chesapeake Bay, are in serious jeopardy, yet remain the lifeblood of our region and the viability of our communities,” she said in a statement. “My endorsement of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, including goal thirteen, which specifically addresses climate action related to greenhouse gas reduction, recognizes the complexity of these challenges. As a city we cannot ignore the urgency of these issues.”

Kamenetz said he has been proactively taking steps to conserve energy in Baltimore County, converting traffic signals to LED bulbs, and using GPS routing programs for county fleet vehicles to reduce carbon emissions. He’d like to see the powers that be follow suit.

“I’m disturbed by Trump, but even more disturbed that Governor Hogan continues to remain silent,” he said. “I appreciate that he has accepted the general assembly initiatives to reduce energy, but by supporting the alliance, it would strengthen the commitment.”

When news broke earlier this month that the popular Obama-era initiative Let Girls Learn may become a casualty of the most recent round of federal budgeting, one Baltimorean was especially jarred. As the former director of policy for former First Lady Michelle Obama, Krishanti Vignarajah helped the administration launch the initiative in 2015. We caught up with the Woodlawn High School graduate—who now runs her own company, Generation Impact, and is expecting her first child (a daughter)—to talk about the status of Let Girls Learn, and why it’s worth saving.

Let’s start with the basics. What is Let Girls Learn and how does it work?
It’s an initiative that President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama launched in March of 2015 to support adolescent girls’ education, at home and abroad. We ultimately had seven agencies integrally involved, ranging from the State Department and our development agency, USAID, to the Department of Labor, Peace Corps and the Department of Agriculture. 

Let Girls Learn supports girls’ education in three different ways. The first is through governmental support, everything from the building and renovation of schools to “second chance programs” for girls who’ve dropped out, to science and tech camps that bring together teenage girls from around the world. But we also appreciated that the U.S. couldn’t do it alone, and so we built an international coalition of governments ranging from Japan and Pakistan, to South Korea and the United Kingdom. But . . . even an international coalition of governments couldn’t solve a problem as large as nearly 100 million adolescent girls out of school worldwide, so we partnered with about 100 private sector companies and organizations, ranging from IBM, Johnson & Johnson, Girl Scouts, and Lands’ End, to universities like Georgetown and Cambridge to help us support girls in completing middle and high school.

What was your involvement in the creation of Let Girls Learn?
Mrs. Obama had been really quite moved by the Boko Haram kidnapping of over 200 girls in Nigeria. So she raised the question of what could we do to address this heartbreaking situation of girls getting kidnapped simply for going to school. Obviously, for both the President and the First Lady, the issue was personal, both because each of their success stories was in part driven by education, but also being the parents of two daughters, the incident hit close to home. We recognized that there was some ongoing programming that the U.S. government already supported, but that there was clearly a need to step up our efforts. So, I basically tried to figure out how could we address the issue of girls’ education, in a real and enduring way.

Why focus on girls not boys?
The reality that we see, both at home and all across the world, is that girls often fall behind—particularly when it comes to middle and high school. And so you end up seeing in some places dramatically lower completion and graduation rates for girls compared to boys. What we realized is that there’s no smarter investment in the future of America than investment in girls’ education.

How so?
When you talk about diverting resources from young girls, you’re really talking about divesting from the next generation of America’s leaders, the next generation of innovators, entrepreneurs, and astrophysicists. And they’re coming from everywhere—small towns, inner cities. They’re going to be the daughters of immigrants and working-class parents. So that’s why we knew that this was a priority. The investment in these girls is not just an investment in them, but an investment in their families, communities, and countries. We know, for example, that . . . for each additional year of high school, a girl’s earning potential goes up as much as 25 percent. Another example: Girls who attend school have healthier families. A Lancet study, for example, found that increasing girls’ education was responsible for more than half the reduction in child mortality between 1970 and 2009. I could go on and on.

So what does it cost the U.S. government per year to run this program?
We ended up investing $1 billion. Unfortunately, even that large amount is still far from what’s needed, because the tragic reality is that we still have 130 million girls out of school around the world.

One billion dollars sounds like a lot of money. For comparison’s sake, what are some other budget line items?
So, for example, our HIV/AIDS funding through PEPFAR, which President Bush created, receives about $7 billion. The State Department budget is about $50 to $51 billion, while the Defense Department budget is about $600 billion.

In terms of soft diplomacy, is Let Girls Learn one of the best investments we can make? You know, winning hearts and minds and all that.
Absolutely. [Secretary of Defense] General [James] Mattis has said this, ‘If you don’t fund the State Department fully, then I need to buy more ammunition ultimately.’ In some cases, it’s pennies on the dollar compared to the other investments we make. But you absolutely get the best bang for your buck.

As of today, it is unclear what the status of Let Girls Learn is. Initial reports suggested it was cut, then the State Department released a statement saying that the program will remain intact, but may get rebranded.
As you can imagine, I sort of scrambled to try to find out what was happening and what was potentially on the chopping block. I’ll tell you I think there is a lot of confusion about what exactly is being contemplated. In my mind, what is absolutely clear is that educating the next generation of women cannot become a casualty of partisan politics.

Do you worry that the Trump administration is just trying to avoid bad publicity here and fully intends to quietly end the initiative?
I realize that there’s always a chance with a new administration that an initiative like Let Girls Learn could have a bull’s-eye on it because it was so closely identified with the [former administration]. But . . . it would just make no sense. President [George W.] Bush, for example, launched the Millennium Challenge Corporation as a new approach to development and to substantially increase HIV/AIDS funding through PEPFAR. When we came into the White House, we realized the importance of these programs and actually increased funding for them. And the idea that something is bad just because it’s what a prior administration has done is at odds with the legacy of the White House.

On Thursday, Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-New Hampshire) introduced the Keeping Girls in School Act, which aims to preserve some aspects of Let Girls Learn, should the Trump administration decide to jettison the initiative. 
Of course, I appreciate any effort to safeguard the significant achievements we made through Let Girls Learn. But it’s too bad if we need legislation to protect an initiative intended to ensure girls get an education—this issue should be above the fray of politics.

What if the Trump administration decides to keep the program but rebrands it? Why would changing that name and that brand be such a loss?
We launched Let Girls Learn in over 50 countries around the world. And as you can imagine, when Michelle Obama says ‘Let Girls Learn,’ people hear it and it means something. We had successful public service announcements that we put out that had everyone from Meryl Streep to John Legend making the case to let girls learn. Likewise, when we launched a social media campaign asking people to respond to the question ‘What did you learn in school?’ we got an overwhelming response. It ended up trending number one [on Twitter] domestically and number three internationally. We had everyone from David Cameron to Prince Harry to Beyoncé all supporting this cause. To rebrand and remove all of that would threaten to take away all of the awareness we’ve raised.

So, you’re saying there’s a lot invested in the brand already. It’d be like trying to rename Nike or something.
It’s like relabeling Coca-Cola and instead calling it Brown Fizzy Water. If you think there’s no cost to that, you’re failing to appreciate what Coca-Cola has built.