Kweisi Mfume 1948–
FORMER MEMBERS H 1971–2007 ������������������������������������������������������������������������ Kweisi Mfume 1948– UNITED STATES REPRESENTATIVE H 1987–1996 DEMOCRAT FROM MARYLAND n epiphany in his mid-20s called Frizzell Gray away stress and frustration, Gray quit his jobs. He hung out A from the streets of Baltimore and into politics under on street corners, participated in illegal gambling, joined a new name: Kweisi Mfume, which means “conquering a gang, and fathered five sons (Ronald, Donald, Kevin, son of kings” in a West African dialect. “Frizzell Gray had Keith, and Michael) with four different women. In the lived and died. From his spirit was born a new person,” summer of 1972, Gray saw a vision of his mother’s face, Mfume later wrote.1 An admirer of civil rights leader Dr. convincing him to leave his life on the streets.5 Earning Martin Luther King, Jr., Mfume followed in his footsteps, a high school equivalency degree, Gray changed his becoming a well-known voice on Baltimore-area radio, the name to symbolize his transformation. He adopted the chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC), and name Kweisi Mfume at the suggestion of an aunt who the leader of one of the country’s oldest advocacy groups had traveled through Ghana. An earlier encounter with for African Americans, the National Association for the future Baltimore-area Representative Parren Mitchell, who Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). challenged Mfume to help solve the problems of poverty Kweisi Mfume, formerly named Frizzell Gray, was and violence, profoundly affected the troubled young born on October 24, 1948, in Turners Station, Maryland, man.6 “I can’t explain it, but a feeling just came over me a small town 10 miles south of Baltimore.
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