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Farewells to US Rep. Elijah Cummings to begin in Baltimore

FILE - In this Tuesday, April 2, 2109 file photo, House Oversight and Reform Committee Chair Elijah Cummings, D-Md., leads a meeting to call for subpoenas after a career official in the White House security office says dozens of people in President Donald Trump's administration were granted security clearances despite "disqualifying issues" in their backgrounds, on Capitol Hill in Washington. Trump on Saturday, July 27, denigrated Cummings' congressional district as a “disgusting, rat and rodent infested mess,” broadening a campaign against prominent critics of his administration that has exacerbated racial tensions. Trump lashed out in tweets against the powerful House oversight committee chairman, claiming his Baltimore-area district is “considered the worst run and most dangerous anywhere in the United States.” (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

BALTIMORE (AP) — Constituents, friends and other mourners are set to gather at a historically black college in Baltimore to honor the life of U.S. Rep. Elijah Cummings in the first of a series of planned services.

The Maryland congressman and civil rights champion died Thursday of complications from long-standing health issues.

Cummings will lie in repose Wednesday at Morgan State University. A tribute service will follow the public viewing. It will include remarks from his wife, Maya Rockeymoore Cummings, U.S. Rep. John Sarbanes and Baltimore Mayor Bernard “Jack” Young.

The university is in the congressional district Cummings represented since 1996. He also served on the school’s Board of Regents for 19 years.

A sharecropper’s son, Cummings led one of the U.S. House committees leading an impeachment inquiry of President Donald Trump.