Just a few miles separate African-American neighborhoods of West Baltimore from Jewish enclaves to the north, and Rep. Elijah Cummings has sought for years to unite these teens across his district.
On Sunday, he brought his message to one more class of them, telling a conference room of boys and girls they aren't so different from one another.
"We have a tendency to categorize people. We say, 'I'm not going to hang with you because you're black. I'm not going to hang with you because you're Jewish," he told them. "What we're trying to do is represent what it feels like to be in somebody else's shoes."
Cummings addressed teens during a social justice summit organized by his nonprofit youth program; some 75 students signed up. Those from the youth program and from Jewish neighborhoods in Baltimore came to hear his address, then discuss social justice issues, such as gun violence, school funding and food deserts.
For Cummings, chairman of the powerful U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Reform, the afternoon at Loyola University Maryland in Baltimore wasn't without some discussion of Beltway politics. Two days before, the special counsel Robert Mueller had submitted his investigation into Russian interference of the presidential election.