Someone cursed at him, and then others joined in, but Cummings, D-Md., seemed unfazed. He returned to the West Baltimore intersection each of the next two nights, repeating the same message.
"Let's go home," Cummings said. "Let's go home."
An 11-term congressman known for his soaring oratory, Cummings has ascended the heights of influence at the U.S. Capitol, where his oversight duties include national security and the Secret Service.
Yet, for all his prestige, Cummings found himself helpless on Monday as rioters swarmed the part of Baltimore he refers to as the "inner inner city" — the neighborhoods he represents and where he lives.
The unrest occurs as Cummings, 67, has reached a political crossroads, tempted by the prospect of running to succeed retiring Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md. The race could vault him to becoming only the 10th African American to serve in the U.S. Senate. Yet the gravity of Baltimore's searing social problems may compel him to remain in Congress, championing his district's outsized needs.
On Friday morning, Cummings was at the U.S. Capitol, only to race back to Baltimore as the city's chief prosecutor announced charges against six officers who apprehended Freddie Gray, the 25-year-old man whose death triggered the rioting.
"It is a new day in our city," the congressman told the television cameras when he reached City Hall.
"So often these things happen and nothing happens," he said, alluding to cases of alleged police misconduct that result in no charges. "This is a great day and we need to realize that."
When the looting began last Monday, hours after Gray's funeral, Cummings was at Howard University in Washington, joining with Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., to host a forum about financial debt incurred by college education.
His first thought was "I've got to get back home," he said. "I felt like my house was being broken into."
Since Wednesday, Cummings has shuttled between days in the U.S. Capitol and nights monitoring his neighborhood streets, carrying a bullhorn with a gold label that reads, "The gentleman will not yield."
Baltimore is personal for Cummings, the city where he has spent most of his life. He lives a short distance from where police apprehended Gray, the 25-year-old man whose death on April 19 provoked the rioting.
The congressman is a ubiquitous presence here, absorbing tales of hardship offered up by constituents, including the 16-year-old who he said recently told him, "Mr. Cummings, sometimes I feel like I'm in my casket, clawing to get out."
"Some of these young people I've known since they were like 1 year old," Cummings said. "I've seen them. I've talked to them."
He cried on national television this week describing the sense of hopelessness that pervades his neighborhood and how "the entire country has to take a warning from this."
"Baltimore," he said, "can happen anywhere."
Monday morning, he was in the pulpit for Gray's funeral at New Shiloh Baptist Church, recounting how four years ago "I put my nephew in the grave" after he was fatally shot. "Still don't know who did it," Cummings told the crowd of dignitaries and ordinary people. "I mourn every day."
At another point, he contemplated the gantlet of cameras trained on Gray's casket, showering worldwide attention on a man who lived most of his life invisible beyond the bleak Sandtown neighborhood of West Baltimore.
"Did anyone recognize Freddie when he was alive?" the congressman demanded, his voice a blend of outrage and despair.
"Did you see him?" he thundered. "Did you see him? Did you see him?"
Cummings's parents were South Carolina sharecroppers who moved to Baltimore hoping to escape poverty. His father worked at a chemical factory and preached on the weekends. His mother raised their seven children.
As a child, Cummings helped integrate a local swimming pool and endured whites throwing bottles and rocks in protest. A local civil rights lawyer, Juanita Jackson Mitchell, took an interest in him and inspired him to go to law school.
Cummings was elected to the Maryland House of Delegates in the early 1980s and served for 14 years. When Kweisi Mfume relinquished his congressional seat in 1996, Cummings defeated more than two dozen Democrats who ran to succeed him in a district that includes part of Baltimore and portions of Howard and Anne Arundel counties.
In Congress, he is the ranking Democrat on the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, where he has drawn attention challenging Republicans as they scrutinize Hillary Rodham Clinton's handling of the attack on Benghazi when she was secretary of state.
Over the years, the congressman's mismanagement of his own finances has made him the target of unflattering scrutiny, including during the mid 1990s, when he failed to pay $30,000 in federal taxes.
Yet, Cummings has not faced a competitive race since joining Congress, typically winning more than 75 percent of the vote when he seeks reelection.
"Nobody is going to beat Elijah Cummings in Baltimore," said state Del. Talmadge Branch, D-Baltimore. "He always talks from his heart, and that's why people love him here."
After Mikulski announced her retirement from the Senate, a gaggle of Maryland Democrats considered running to succeed her. At the moment, Reps. Donna F. Edwards of Prince George's County and Chris Van Hollen of Montgomery County are the only two who have declared their candidacies.
A poll Cummings commissioned showed him with a 6-point lead in a three-way primary against them. But his victory is far from assured against two formidable opponents who are already racking up endorsements and donations.
Since the riots, Cummings said Thursday, "I haven't even really thought about the Senate race too much. I've been more concentrating on how do I keep people safe.
"I do not want Baltimore to explode."
Friends say Cummings is unsure of his path, aware of the risk of losing and of how much he enjoys his role in Congress, even though Democrats there are virtually powerless under the current Republican majority, and senators — including freshmen — have more opportunity to shape legislation and build a national profile.
Maryland Senate President Thomas Mike Miller, a longtime friend, said the congressman recently told him, "'I don't know if I want to give [Congress] up to be a back-bencher in the Senate.'"
"I don't think he pulls the trigger," Miller said this week. "But if he does, he'd be a very formidable candidate."
Cummings's visibility in the aftermath of the riots could make his name even more recognizable in other parts of the state, including the Washington suburbs represented by Van Hollen and Edwards.
"If he gets in the race, he instantly becomes the front-runner," said former Maryland attorney general Douglas Gansler, who ran for governor last year.
At the same time, Gansler said, Cummings's efforts might not help him with certain parts of the Maryland electorate, including conservative white Democrats who may not "want the guy in the street being my senator."
"He becomes inextricably linked to Baltimore city," Gansler said. "I don't think it helps him politically, necessarily."
What makes Cummings compelling, Gansler said, "is that I don't think that enters his mind."
Thursday night, more than 72 hours after the riots started, the congressman again arrived at the intersection of Pennsylvania and North avenues, bullhorn in hand as he surveyed the crowd. A line of police officers in riot gear was in position.
Someone hugged Cummings. Another told him he should run for mayor.
"I love my people," Cummings told reporters. "I'd die for my people."
A man shouted, "I appreciate you coming out here, congressman, but we need to hear some truth."
Cummings linked arms with a state senator and a dozen others, all of them set to let the crowd know that curfew was coming, and it was time to go.
First, the congressman offered a prayer for "a city that is not perfect but is moving towards perfection." Then they marched, with Cummings leading everyone in "This Little Light of Mine."
"What light?" a man demanded, cursing what he described as the "Kumbaya" atmosphere.
The congressman kept marching, shouting three times into his bullhorn, "There's love in our hearts" before he was done for the night.
Everyone, he said, needed to get home.
