 So today you're all here to hear Dr. Maya R. Cummings and James Dale talk about the late Elijah Cummings book were better than this my fight for future of our democracy. So we thank them so much for being here. And like I said just some brief library announcements. We want to welcome Chanel Miller as our 16th one city one book Chanel's book is about her experience with sexual assault on the Stanford campus and the subsequent judicial system and the court process and her survival and her resilience and her beautiful art and how she's done. And this book is just heavy, but it's so approachable. I encourage you all to pick it up today from your library, your favorite local bookstore or the friends of the library bookstore, and join us March 16 for an event with Chanel Miller and conversation with Robin Takayama at the from the SF Arts Commission. And welcome you to the unseated land of the aloney tribal people and acknowledge the many raw mutish aloney tribal groups and families as the rightful stewards in the lands in which we live and work in the Bay Area. We are committed to uplifting the names of these lands and community members from these nations with whom we live together. SFPL encourages you to learn more about first person cult first person culture and land rights and are committed to hosting events and providing educational resources on these topics. I also want to let you know that SFPL is not a neutral institution and stand in solidarity with the black lives matter movement and support collective action to end structural systemic and institutional racism in our house and in our community, and nationwide starts as a library we're here to help our community by providing useful and factual information, hosting events, providing reading lists and reading lists and reading lists would get we got you covered on reading. So all of those great resources are in that chat link that I put in the box, and you can check that out. And we are celebrating just one PSA there which is all those books you go pick up to go. Make sure you wear your mask and protect my library family out there working on the front lines and all of our amazing folks in San Francisco working the frontline serving us. We are still in a pandemic, wear your mask. And this beautiful art is by Samuel Rodriguez you can see his art on Instagram. Coming up just some quick things, partnership with the McAvoy Foundation for the Arts. Isaac Julian has a exhibition about Frederick Douglass and he'll be talking to Celeste Marie Bernere and Judith Butler the amazing Judith Butler about the women in Frederick Douglass's life. And I booked the gorilla girls I can't even wait so come check all this stuff out. These are in partnership with one city one book. We're highlighting today borderland books and Marcus books, the nation's oldest black owned independent bookstore. So please pick up today's book were better than this from one of these two bookstores, or your favorite local independent bookshop. We love bookstores. Let our cities bookstores die. This is part of our more than a month events. We celebrate Black History Month from January to February and all year round, but definitely have some highlights going this time around, and still have a week and a half of amazing events lined up. This is our Effie Lee Morris lecture and something we've been hosting for many, many years, and this is going to feature Jason Reynolds, who will be talking about transformative power of reading and writing. So join us for that. And authors, and historians, and today's event. We have Dr Maya, Dr Maya are Cummings and James Dale, who will be discussing Elijah Cummings book were better than this. Dr Maya Rocky more Cummings is an American political science scientist policy wonk writer and public speaker based in Washington DC. Maya was married to the late Congressman Elijah Cummings. This is the first time I've got to introduce a policy wonk to I'm so excited. James Dale, who collaborated on a number of books, including the topic of sports business medicine and life lessons. His work includes the power of nice. Just show up with half with hall of fame baseball player Cal Ripken and the Q factor. So without further ado, let us turn it over to Dr Maya and Jim Dale. Maya, you're muted. Okay. Thank you and this unhappy black history month I've got to say that I love the fact that your institution is not neutral, because not being neutral in today's age means that you recognize the common humanity and everyone. But you're not willing to use politics in order to, you know, marginalized population groups. That is absolutely the direction that we need to go. It's the value system in which Elijah of course built his career. Yeah, you know, you know, my late husband was a wonderful man. About eight years ago, I started encouraging him to write his book and tried to help out for a while. And, you know, finally things came together when I was at lunch one day with a friend and said, you know, I'm trying to find someone to help Elijah write his book, and she said I have just the man for you. And she introduced me to Jim Dale, who is a professional book collaborator. And we had a great conversation and then I introduced him to Elijah and so with that, from all the feedback that we're getting, we recently received two in double ACP image award nominations for this book and we're very happy and excited about that. But, you know, also a lot of people who knew Elijah who's read the book, I'll say that you know it's like he's talking to me it's like he's telling me these stories. That means that Jim has captured Elijah's voice perfectly. And so I am just delighted to introduce you to James Dale. Thank you very much, Maya. It's been this whole collaboration has been quite meaningful to all of us, and I owe the genesis of it certainly to my getting together with with Maya. And I'd like to just give you a little bit of background as Maya said, and as the as a nieces and these have said, I've been writing books like this collaborating co authoring with someone to help tell their story for many, many years. I don't know about any hesitation that personally this book, this particular project of work in collaboration was without question the most meaningful and indelible experience of my writing life it had more personal impact on me than any other book that I have been a part of. That was the opportunity to work with Elijah Cummings on an almost daily basis to talk to him certainly daily or sometimes at night sometimes late at night, but we had really session after session, where he related stories to me. During those sessions, I began to formulate a structure for the book, which ended up being sort of what we called a quilted interweaving of the formative moments from it from his past from Elijah's past from his youth from his growing up as a child of sharecroppers living in segregated neighborhoods struggling in school and forming eventually forming the fabric of everything he was able to do in later life in Washington in Congress with presidents. It was quite literally a case of the past informing the present very very early in our writing sessions. I asked Elijah. If there was one story in his past that rose above the rest and if you think about your own life it's very hard. It's I said I referred to as an unfair question to put one above all. But I said is there one that that really stands out as being the most formative in your life. And without any hesitation, he recounted the following experience and I'm going to read an excerpt from that experience. When I was no more than 11 years old. My life was forever altered. I certainly didn't realize at the time. I knew something important was happening, but it took a long while before the impact really hit me. We had a neighborhood community playground center where the kids would gather in the summer, the small waiting pool and some recreation counselors to watch over us. Our little waiting pool was no more than a few feet across very shallow, maybe up to your knees and filled with kids side by side. You had to take turns in the waiting pool and a half an hour maybe at a time. And after the third group, the water was pretty dirty. But that was the only way we had to get cool on a hot day. One day in late August, a lady came and asked us kids, how would you like to go to a real swimming pool, one with a diving board and an Olympic size pool. Well, we all thought that would be great. But how was that going to happen. She said there was a pool like that only a few blocks away from where we were in Riverside Park, and that we deserve to go there. And she was going to take us. She said, quote, you can swim to your heart's delight. Those were her words almost 50 years ago to your heart's delight. Her name was Juanita Jackson Mitchell. And to us she was just the nice lady was going to take us to a real swimming pool. We didn't realize until later that she was a civil rights pioneer from a family of civil rights pioneers, the first African American woman to practice law in Maryland. Juanita Jackson Mitchell's mother was the inspirational Dr. Lily Jackson who descended from a signer of the Declaration of Independence, but still had to attend the segregated colored high school. She rose to president of the Baltimore branch of the NAACP became an early leader in nonviolent protests, and was known as the mother of freedom. Her daughter Juanita was then was married to Clarence Mitchell junior, a national leader in civil rights and lobbyists for the NAACP, and they were parents of two state senators Michael and Clarence the third civil rights was practically the family business. What Mrs Mitchell did not tell us that day about the nice pool she was taking us to was that it was totally segregated. No blacks allowed. Our colleagues at the rec center, Jim Smith and Walter black were leading us on an integration march. There we were a band of little kids walking down the streets of Baltimore from a black neighborhood to a white neighborhood, only a few blocks from each other, but worlds apart. After day Juanita and Jim and Walter led about 30 of us walking 10 or 15 blocks, while an angry mom, not of other kids, but have grown white adults yell names of us told us to go home and through rocks and bricks at little kids. One of those rocks struck me in the forehead and caused a scar that I carry to this day. The police watched and the newspapers took pictures and ran stories, but nobody stopped the angry residents, and nobody stopped us. We could we kids would swim in the Riverside Park pool each day, and then leave with the quote unquote neighbors yelling racial epithets and throwing debris and bottles and white kids pushing black kids in the pool. The neighbors ironically. Yes, we all lived within blocks of each other, but they were hardly neighborly. They were the opposite. People trying to keep us out of their neighborhood. Tensions were high. After taking Sunday off. They let us all back again on Monday Labor Day. Today, someone called Walters associate Lyle Roberts a nigger, the hostility escalating. About that time though, the Riverside Park citizens clinging to their segregated white enclave must have realized that we were all going to just keep coming back, because they stopped coming to their doorways and out into the streets, shouting and throwing just as Juanita Mitchell promised, we all got to go to a real pool. And as she said, we swam to our hearts to light. Even as little children, we had a sense of victory, victory and fear. We'd gone off to play every day where we ended up making history. This was in the early 1960s and old rules and practices and even prejudices began slowly but steadily to change. Baltimore State largely segregated for the next 10 years, but it was the beginning, the root of what would evolve into a massive upheaval and social norms change. For me, that was the beginning of wanting to become somebody who could make things change. And at Mitchell and the other people who made integration happen were lawyers. So I wanted to be a lawyer. These lawyers were young men and women who had the courage to walk up the street, have people yell at them and be unafraid to have little kids following them trusting and believing in them to make change happen. I'm not sure what a lawyer was what their job was, but I saw what they could accomplish. Oh my God what a powerful force that could be change little black children getting what only white children had, because we were after all just kids no matter what color, who wanted the same chances in life. The chance to swim in a pool, the chance to go to a good school or live in a nice neighborhood, or see a better world. I wanted to be part of that change. And I have endeavored to do so ever since, and I've pursued it ever since. As for progress and achieving change. Here's a fitting postscript. 30 years later, a man came up and identify himself as one of those in the angry mob, and told me he was sorry. What is the right response to justice acknowledged, but so long delayed. I did not applaud his admission. Nor did I spurn it. I said, apology accepted. Elijah said to me, as we worked further that he never forgot the swimming pool incident. It was formative. He said he often called upon the memory to fuel his actions in Washington. When he conducted hearings on the Trump immigration policies separating mothers and children, putting them in cages telling them to go back where they came from. When Trump launched his Twitter attack on Cummings beloved hometown as a quote, disgusting rat and rodent in fact infested mess. He answered ABC's George Stephanopoulos's question. Yes, Trump is a racist, no doubt about it. When Elijah walked the streets of Baltimore to calm his city after the senseless death of young Freddie Gray. At Freddy's funeral. When he asked those watching and listening. Did you see him. Did you really see him. Did you see the casket and you see him on the news, but when he walked to school, when he played ball on his neighborhood team, when he sang in the choir. Did you see him. Elijah Cummings decried the invisible black lives so often lost, never really seen. His stories like this as the fabric that were the fabric that interwoven his life and mission. His wife and partner who wrote the last chapter of the book after Elijah's death will talk about that final chapter of his life and also bring us up to date on all that has occurred since Maya. Thank you, Jim. I've got to tell you that that formative event in Elijah's life. Elijah served as a catalyst for him to actually see the power of people in our democracy. How our form of government actually allows people's voices to be heard and to actually change laws in a way that makes a trans formative difference in the lives of many. And so it was through that experience that he was transformed if you will from a young man born into Jim Crow south as an African American being marginalized into someone who was the biggest defender of our nation's democracy. And so with that I'm going to read from the last chapter of the book which was my afterward that discusses Elijah's final days and then what happened afterwards. After the Democrats regain the majority in the midterms. Elijah was the chairman of the committee on oversight and reform. He was finally in a position to lead in this investigations and to set the agenda for hearings. But he was sober about the realities of the threats he and his committee would face from the Trump administration and congressional Republicans. Despite his pain, he threw himself into his work. Then in late summer, just before his speech at the National Press Club, he took yet another bad turn and was readmitted to Johns Hopkins. The underlying suspicion was that the cancer had come back. Elijah was weaker than I'd seen him in years. A day before he was to give the speech, I asked if he still intended to do it. He said, Maya, I'll be there if I have to crawl. Elijah was so drained that when his aids maneuvered him to the podium pale and unsteady, I thought he might drop. Then he looked at the crowd four or five times the size of what had been expected before his investigations into the administration before the shootings and Dayton and El Paso and before Trump's Twitter attack on Baltimore and Elijah. He looked at the crowd and you could literally see him become energized. He exhorted the audience to listen and more important to take action. He was passionate as only Elijah Cummings could be. The gathering of usually callous Washington media cheered and gave him a standing ovation exhausted and barely able to keep going. He went straight back to the hospital. During the next few weeks, he managed to continue vital work. He was on the phone with Nancy Pelosi, Adam Schiff, Jerry Nadler and his staff. He read testimony. He reviewed the impeachment updates. He signed subpoenas. So many times I said Elijah, that's enough for today. Okay, I'll stop soon, he'd say. Doctors at Hopkins and NIH monitored his cancer. It was obviously recurring. The question was, could they do anything to slow it down or limit it? We all did everything we could. There became I think the best word is an inevitability to it. He knew and I suspected we were coming to the end. It was coming as if you could see it like a train approaching in the distance. When you're not sure how far away it is, but you know it's steadily coming towards you. That's when he began to talk differently. He would say he was tired no matter how much rest he got just tired all the time. He complained of constant pain. It was clearly physical, but it was also emotional and spiritual. The inner Elijah was burning out. We talked about the past, what Elijah had done. And about the future and all that remained to be done. We did not use the word death. We just knew. As is said by his passing, events moved even faster in the days just after Elijah's death. On December 18, 2019, Speaker Nancy Pelosi banged the gavel and announced that the House of Representatives voted 230 to 197 strictly along party lines to impeach Donald J. Trump, the third president in the history of the United States to face impeachment charges. That evening during her press conference, she spoke about Elijah. She honored him as a key force in the inquiry, calling him our North Star. And she quoted him. When the history books are written about this tumultuous era, I want them to show that I was among those in the House of Representatives who stood up to lawlessness and tyranny. She added. She also said somewhat presciently, when we're dancing with angels, the question will be, what did you do to make sure we kept our democracy intact. We did all we could Elijah, we passed the two articles of impeachment, the president is impeached. When told people in the days after his death, Elijah's death wasn't just my loss. It was our loss as a nation. And we all have the responsibility to move his legacy forward. Because we know that with every transgression, every disregard for the Constitution, every attempt to act above the law, every denial of truth, our democracy is endangered. And that's why in the months and years ahead, we must continue to hear Elijah's voice. We're better than this. We're better than this. Yes, we are. We must be. Elijah, and if anybody's familiar with the Bible and in the Bible, Elijah is a prophet. And here Elijah's deeds and legacy were precious. Perhaps more so than what we would have wished perhaps, you know, since his passing there have been a lot of historic moments. What happened that historians will be writing about for 200 years from now. So from the first first impeachment charges to the partisan acquittal to the covert pandemic and Trump spot botched response which Elijah would not have been surprised about to the very ugly presidential campaign and thank God for the election of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. And then to the stolen election claims by Trump and his loyalists all unfounded and their outrageous lawsuits frivolous lawsuits claiming voter fraud to the dismissal of all 50 plus of those suits to state election officials Republican officials denying President Trump's election lies in Georgia in particular, and even stalwarts like Bill Barr and Chris Christie rejecting the fraud claims. But there were still over 100 members of the US House of Representatives who voted to overturn the electoral college votes for a free and fair election in favor of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. And then we saw of course Trump turn on Vice President Mike Pence. And then we also saw him incite a violent insurrection at the US Capitol. So you know the reality is is that a lot of people have asked me what would have Elijah thought what would he have done. And I've got to tell you he says it in his book and I'm just going to read this passage quickly and then I'll come to a close. He says democracy literally means a government run by the people. I don't always agree. But to get anywhere, especially in the polarizing arena of politics. We have to find common ground, something to build trust and respect on. You also have to teach people that you have boundaries, bottom lines, things you will not do behaviors you will not put up with places you will not go. In a democracy, having our own checks and balances teaches our friends, as well as our leaders, what we will accept and will not accept. So Elijah basically he always had this saying you've got to teach people how to treat you. And in our democracy we've got to teach irreverent autocratic leaders, how to treat our democracy. So it's not, I think a coincidence that we're having this conversation today on, I think one of the last days of the Senate trial, looking at Donald Trump second impeachment. And certainly Elijah would have been a champion for urging the senators to convict. And he would have done it to say that you do not want to invite this to happen to us ever again by allowing this man to get away Scott free. And so with that I think I'll stop there and I look forward to our conversation. Great. And these are some questions. Maybe not. Thank you for coming back on audience do you have any questions for our amazing panelists today and you can raise your hand, or you can put those in the q amp a function. And you don't need to be shy how about on YouTube Lisa do we have any questions out there. And we got to give it you know in the virtual and you got to give it that 10 seconds for people to. Okay, Susan, I am going to remove the mute and you may speak. Good afternoon my dear friend Maya rocking work comings and a wonderful hearing you Jim Dale. I love the book you know I loved Elijah I love you and I'm a born and raised Baltimore in and so much that I learned that I didn't know I've learned a lot since the riots occurred what was it like five years ago I've learned a lot by going and speaking to renowned, you know, professors from from from Howard from Hopkins and, and to hear this, as if, and it really is Jim. And I know was mentioned earlier Maya mentioned it that is if the way you wrote it was like hearing listening to makes me get tearful listening to Elijah speak. I know just as with the election that just occurred I know that Elijah and John, John Lewis and RBG and who else was it I can. Wasn't there a fourth. Well, I know that they're looking to I know that their wings are wrapped around all of us and democracy is going to prevail. I know Elijah, they're all going to be quite pleased. So, thank you for being on again, and miss you. Thank you. I think the fourth person you're thinking about if you're thinking about that picture is john McCain the late john McCain. Thank you. Okay, thank you. Appreciate it. Yeah, and thank you for reading the book and supporting Elijah and this project so I gave it as gifts as you know for the holidays to quite a few people. Thank you so much. All right, take care. Thank you. Wonderful and then I do have a question. People would like to know a little more about Mr. Cummings life and like his experiences. And you know they can check that book out or buy that book. Sure. I mean there's so many stories that the book is really a chronicle of his life. And as as Maya will often say, there are many more stories. I mean his his life was just sort of jam packed with these wonderful moments that were inspirational not all wonderful in the sense that they were inspirational some some were happy some were not happy but they were so meaningful. It's hard. It's hard to know where to start. There's, there's one note that I was thinking about actually last night that he talked about a couple of times and it was a lesson that he he extracted a lot of lessons from his parents when they would actually tell him something that would be a lesson and sometimes he would extract it just from observing what was going on in the household. And he talked about how his parents work so hard they work two jobs two and three jobs, in addition to to becoming preachers. His father had a job at a chemical plant, and it was a demeaning unpleasant job, working long hours, and often doing the work that many of the white employees wouldn't do. He would go to work every day and come home. Late in the afternoon or early evening, and I just said almost every day he had a car which was not so common not everybody had a car then, and especially in the neighborhood but he did, and he would pull back up in front of the house. And he wouldn't come in. He would sit in the car. And for Elijah said for long period of time as much as an hour, he would sit. And unlike today he wasn't texting or reading. He was sitting and Elijah eventually, and he and his siblings asked his father father what what are you what were you doing what do what do you do. He was saying that he was letting the days in dignities. Disappear, disappear, leave his body leave his mind, so that he could return to his family as a person as a human being as a loving father, and let that drain from him let that venom so to speak drain. And as Elijah told me the story I said I would imagine you've had days where you are in Congress and you're dealing with the most wrenching issues and perhaps with colleagues who are not very collegial. And you have to let that venom drain. And he said so often and so often he would think about his father. And he said, unfortunately, after Trump became President. That was a more and more frequent feeling that he had, but it was something he called on to it was a tool it was a great weapon, so to speak something to call on almost curative on a, on a daily basis to let your body recover and let your mind recover and your soul recover. And I think that that's indicative he grew up in a loving household I mean they were hard working even the kids. I mean Elijah had a couple of jobs his brothers and sisters had jobs. I mean he did papers I mean he I mean everybody hustled everybody. Both of his parents were preachers. And they were, they grew up in a Pentecostal household, which is if you know anything about the Christian faith, the Pentecostal sect is one is pretty strict. And so, you know, Elijah never learned to play cars in fact I think I taught him that how to play in his advanced adulthood. And, you know, it was just an and they none of them ever miss school. His dad had a saying that if one of his kids miss school admit that they had died the night before. And of course, of course all of his kids live through adulthood so you know they always they all went to school and never missed a day. All of those lessons from his childhood in terms of how his parents reared them basically prepared him for his adult life. You know he was actually labeled special education as a kid to, and he had to come overcome all of those labels. In order to, you know, he was among the first cohort of African American students who integrated Baltimore City public schools in his during his junior high years. And then he went to Baltimore City College was a leader a student leader at that high school. Then he graduated from Howard University five beta Kappa went to the University of Maryland law school, graduating and then passing the bar on the time, you know, went on to be the very first speaker pro Tim of the Maryland House of Delegates before being elected to the US Congress in 2006 and rising to become one of the most powerful members of that body, as the chairman of the Republican Reform Committee which has jurisdiction over all of the government, including the White House. And so you know what the book does is it recounts his experiences with the Trump White House. In addition to the stories from his youth, and it talks about the investigations he led, and what his experience was with Donald Trump, and why ultimately, you know, even though he reached out to Donald Trump in the beginning. He had to conclude two things. And, and this is why he spent the last year of his life, writing this book. One, he wanted to make sure the kids saw that you know if he was able to overcome obstacles they could do it too. But two, he wanted to warn the American people about the danger of Donald Trump. And he viewed that danger as twofold. One, he viewed Donald Trump as a threat to our democracy. He saw up close and personal, how Donald Trump had no regard for the Constitution, had no regard for democratic norms. Basically dismissed subpoenas didn't respond, used the legal system to rope a dope to avoid accountability, and basically subverted the agencies of government to actually serve his own personal purposes and political purposes. And so, you know with that, you know, Elijah was absolutely right. January 6 I think was just only one indicator amongst many about the threat that Donald Trump presents, and just imagine if he would have gotten a second term. The devastation would have been just unfathomable. And then the second danger that Elijah thought Donald Trump represented to us was to our humanity. One of the investigations that Elijah oversaw was how those families were treated at the southern border. He basically got all up in the data and stories of how the kids were ripped apart from their families, some of whom have never been returned to their family members to this day, and you know how they were treated, sleeping on floors and cages, etc. And he was convinced that Donald Trump and his administration had a streak of cruelty. And of course, you know, we've seen cruelty like this before in the world. And we've also seen the language of Donald Trump before in the world the dehumanizing language of Donald Trump used before, and I referenced the third Reich. When you start calling people and referring to them as insects, then for those who actually feel similarly, they feel no hesitation in terms of treating you mistreating you, or doing harm to you in major ways. And so Elijah foresaw a tragedy on a grand scale, if Donald Trump got a second term in office. And so he thought that Donald Trump was a threat to both our democracy and our humanity and he was desperate to make sure the American people were warned. Well, I don't know and they say if you have any if I have other questions we, we can tell stories of like this inspirational stories. But you perhaps you have another area, another maybe another question from one of the attendees. That was an amazing story Maya and just going deep into Elijah's thoughts about our current situation is also just so insightful. Thank you. Attendees, any more questions was, yeah. You see that one. Yes, I see it. You want to take it. Maybe Jim, you want to take it first was represented as a mentor. I want to find it. Where is it was a minute of Cummings a mentor. Oh my goodness. To say the least, there's so many this this is this will fill a couple hours. He, there he began a program of 20 plus years ago, the Elijah Cummings youth program that sent that finds kids in school, young kids in school, and sends them on a mentorship program and sends them to Israel, brings them back and then they speak and go spread the word about what they've learned about leadership. And he as Maya knows the great deal about the details of it but these are kids are very carefully selected very competitive to get this. They end up with it with a 100% graduation rate from high school and 95% graduation rate from college. And these are kids from all sorts of backgrounds from the city from the city of Baltimore, and they've gone on to some of the most distinguished careers imaginable including Victor Blackwell who is an anchor on CNN, who interestingly and and movingly delivered one of the great op ed pieces after Trump's attack on Baltimore the rodent infested attack. It was brilliant and emotional and he cried and everybody watched it right but and he was, he was one of the of Elijah's mentees. There are, there are, you know, there are countless others one of the other examples is how he Elijah liked to take in young members of Congress into his committees. Many members of Congress will say well I'll wait until so and so gets older gets wiser, well gets more experience gets you know a little gray hair. He, he said to Nancy Pelosi when he took the chair of the oversight and reform committee give me the young ones, give me the new ones give me the newly elected. And in particular he took a liking to well or the entire squad, including AOC and he, he reveled in that job and he said because he wasn't only mentoring them but they were teaching him. So he would stay in a sense stay current what are people thinking and feeling that I think that's a true mentor in my experience and and study and observation is a person who helps somebody but who actually garners as much from that experience as they give, and he was that. Absolutely. I'm glad that you know women were essential to Elijah's career, you know, the Juanita Jackson Mitchell, basically tipping him off to become a lawyer at the age of 11 that mean he was inspired by her. So, there was another woman named Lena Kay Lee that when he became a lawyer, he was he wasn't even thinking about politics frankly. He was out in the community. He ran a small law firm, but he also created this program to mentor African American lawyers and tutor them so that they could pass the bar like he did on the first time. So, you know, she reached out to him one day out of the blue. And she said, you know, I am looking I'm sick, and I, you know, I regretfully I'm going to leave the House of Delegates, you know, Marilyn House of Delegates, and I'm looking for an African American female attorney to replace me. And Elijah said, Well, I can help you find one. Delegately. And she said, Nope, you'll do. And she proceeded to take Elijah under her wing. She raised funds for him she introduced him to people she opened doors for him. And she was the wind beneath his wings that allowed him to have a successful run at the Marilyn House of Delegates. You know, when he came to Congress, you know, women encourage him to do that, but I've got it in by saying that your own Nancy Pelosi San Francisco. They were good friends. Elijah and Nancy Pelosi were great friends. And she and Elijah considered her his mentor. She, as you know, the speaker of the house several times, you know, she took Elijah under her wing. And she supported him. When he became chair of the Oversight and Reform Committee, he wasn't next in line. He was like the third person down. And it was through the support of Nancy Pelosi and of course others that he was able to actually jump three slots to take that position. And of course the rest is history. And I feel like I feel like we share Nancy Pelosi, the city of Baltimore in the city of San Francisco, because of her deep roots in Baltimore as well. Absolutely she was born and bred raised here before of course meeting her spouse and moving to San Francisco. She is beloved. That is true. Dr. Do you have anything coming up yourself we'd love to hear what's coming up next for Dr Maya Cummings. I know you had a book out the political action handbook which you know a little bit 2004 we're ready for another one. Tell us. One is called Rageism and it's coming out or Rutledge Press is the the publisher. And it's basically saying that structural discrimination is destroying the country and that we are best days are ahead of us. If we can dismantle structural discrimination and invest in all people so that the entire nation can benefit from the the brilliance and the talent that we currently leave on the table currently. And so it's, it's called Rageism, you know, racism and ageism. And when I talk about ageism is ageism over a lifetime that for people of color for groups that are discriminated against their lives, you know, from, you know, actually for pre birth are imperiled by the ways that we deliberately marginalized exclude and take punitive actions against communities of color, people of color LGBT communities. And so with that, you know, I'm offering remedies based on my 25 years plus experience with policy and politics. Thank you. That is amazing. We can't wait. And you're welcome to come back to SFPL when you have that book ready and we'll do another author talk. Speaking of that, there's a question about I mean you sound like an amazing moral compass but there is a question about who can we as a whole tribe of people look for as our next moral compass. I think that Jim mentioned earlier the squad. And I think that Elijah doesn't heart he hardly mentions anybody else in his book, but he several pages dedicates to the squad. Now, the little backstory on Jim's story is that none of the other chair people of the congressional committees when the squad came to Washington, none of them wanted them on their committees. Because they had seen the way they campaigned and basically we're willing to say anything and from their perspective and stand up boldly and get the you know the media attention and they frankly didn't want to deal with it. And I was like, give them to me. Are you kidding me I can use their energy I can use their brilliance I can use their talent. It's going to be important for us to drive our agenda. So you know he had Ayanna Presley, he had Rashida to lead he had Alexandria Elcasio Cortez, and I truly believe that he thought, and he, you know, and to, I do believe that he believes that that their moral stance is the North Star. And so with that you know I know that will put off some people, particularly those who are more centrist, but the reality is is that they stand and they speak their minds and you know for me on nine times out of 10 they are absolutely on target. He had a story that he told about where they, Alexandria, and the others wanted to go to the border to observe to be prepared for the hearings, the immigration hearings. And he advised he thought it was a great idea. And they first came to the committee and said well we, you know, will you send us and he said no. You should send your offices should send you so that you will be above reproach as far as going on behalf of the committee but instead going on behalf of Congress and your district. And then they went, and they tweeted from there and then came back and asked. Later when we talked about who asked the bed I said to him, when you had the hearings, what were the best questions, he said they were all asked by them, because they had seen the first hand said but but they also were so prepared, and he was so he was, he was beaming and with the with the way they handled it, and centrist leftist left right, they simply were informed and on top of. And they asked the best questions by far. Yeah, I think it was the GOC for president somebody say, I want to thank you both there's lots of love coming through and attendees this is your last chance to ask that question if you want to raise your hand, put it in the chat. YouTube love coming in. We'll give it this 10 seconds just you know, the virtual 10 seconds shyness. silent. It was such an honor to have you both here and I appreciate the work that you have done and going into the late Mr. Cummings work. Thank you so much for sharing your stories with us. Thank you so much. The San Francisco Public Library community in Anissa. Thank you. Thank you very much for having us. It was great. All right. We're going to call it. Thank you so much. You have a lovely weekend and we'll see you all soon. There's lots more more than a month coming up. Come with us this next week. Thank you.