The Counterpublic Papers vol. 5 no. 8

Last night John Conyers, former congressman (D-MI) passed away at the age of 90. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) now represents his district (although the shape of the district is very different than it once was). Last week Elijah Cummings (D-MD) passed away. A bit more than thirty years separates their careers—Conyers was one of the founders of the Congressional Black Caucus and was elected at the height of the Civil Rights Movement while Cummings first took office in the mid nineties just as Clinton was signing legislation designed to repeal welfare. Both Conyers and Cummings represented cities in decline (then resurgence, then decline, then resurgence), and both represented the challenges of black political representation, which are in essence the challenges of modern American political representation. In Cummings case, he’s been known largely for his role as Oversight and Reform Chair during the 116th congress and then for his symbolic role as someone who fervently “cared about our democracy” (his widow Maya Rockeymoore Cummings’ words). As the Chair of the Oversight Committee Cummings was one of the first to begin to create cracks in the Trump edifice.

Both were loved by their constituents. Conyers likely would’ve won his seat again if he’d decided to run. And although Cummings died young (given his status) he died the way he’d have likely died…in office, baring scandal.

In both instances though I’d argue that their long terms in office combined with the nature of congressional districts (they’re constructed in a way to render political competition primarily symbolic) left them open to the criticism that they were far more interested in symbolically touting democracy than they were in actively practicing it.

Here’s what I mean.

I’ve had the occasion to sit on two panels with Cummings—one in 2018 at an event commemorating the 1968 Kerner Commission, and another in the wake of the Freddie Gray Uprising. I’ve also been involved in a political issue (the Hopkins private police force) that involved Cummings. The Freddie Gray panel was conducted at a conference of philanthropists interested in working with the issues faced by black boys that just so happened to be held in Baltimore after the Uprising. There were…I think four or five of us on the panel. I remember being struck by Cummings comments—he spent the vast majority of it arguing for education as the means to solve the challenges black boys faced. He was the sole political representative on that panel, but he didn’t say a word about political involvement, he didn’t say a word about the political dynamics that led to Gray’s death, that then led to the uprising. I was the only one to talk about the Uprising as a politically constructed event that would require political solutions. His comments at the 1968 panel were somewhat similar—I kind of recall using that panel to revisit the Uprising panel that we’d sat together on but even then he was in poor health and given that it was far more likely that I dodged bringing it up given his health than that I engaged him.

Cummings was more aggressive on the Hopkins issue. Cummings (who was a former member of the Maryland House of Delegates before he ran for Congress) went and lobbied vigorously on behalf of the bill, even though the bill was a state rather than federal bill. Cummings’ decision was understandable from a personal standpoint—Cummings’ nephew was killed at an off-campus housing unit while an undergrad and given Cummings testimony this was on his mind. However the legislation would not give Hopkins police the authority to investigate homicides. And we still aren’t convinced given the involvement of figures like Michael Bloomberg (who also lobbied on behalf of the bill) that there isn’t more involved.

In the wake of his death we’re all pretty sure that his wife is going to run for his seat. And while the campaign should bring a lot of interest from Baltimore political representatives, many of whom will have stronger ties to the city than Rockeymoore Cummings does (while she lives in Baltimore she is not from Baltimore and there’s a big difference), it’ll likely be hers to lose. Which makes sense—name recognition is likely going to be the name of the game. It is worth noting though that a number of writers basically noted that garnering Cummings’ seat was basically a lifetime job. There’s a long literature that begins to develop around the late eighties and early nineties, asking whether black political representatives do a better job of representing black constituents than white ones do. The answer is basically “yes, but”. How good though can any representative be given little political competition and a funding dynamic which almost by nature requires that they speak more on behalf of powerful institutions (like Hopkins) than they speak either on behalf of the less powerful they in fact represent or work to critically involve those less powerful in their own government?

Anyway, a few people asked if I either went to the funeral, or watched it. I did not. While I am sad for his wife (Rockeymoore Cummings is a political scientist and we met during graduate school at the National Conference of Black Political Science meetings) I just remember the times that he could’ve had a far more robust conception of what it meant to represent Baltimoreans, and he chose another way.

….

I’m going to be in NYC. Will be at Vassar participating in a conference on the 50th anniversary of Africana. Going to give a talk on The Future of Freedoms using the Baltimore squeegee kids as a way to think through both freedom and how we go about studying freedom in Africana Studies. I’m looking forward to it.

At least here the leaves are still beautiful and until daylight savings time begins around these parts I suggest you take advantage of that one extra hour. You won’t regret it.