Former President Barack Obama praised longtime Congressmember Elijah Cummings at his funeral Friday in Baltimore, after his body lay in state in the U.S. Capitol. Cummings was the first African-American lawmaker to receive the honor. He spent decades championing the rights of African Americans and the poor — first as a civil rights activist and later as a Maryland state legislator, before being elected to represent his Baltimore district in the House of Representatives 13 times. This is President Obama.

Barack Obama: “Elijah Cummings was a man of noble and good heart. His parents and his faith planted the seeds of hope and love and compassion and righteousness in that good soil of his. He has harvested all the crop that he could, for the Lord has now called Elijah home to give his humble, faithful servant rest. And it now falls on us to continue his work, so that other young boys and girls in Baltimore, across Maryland, across the United States and around the world might, too, have a chance to grow and to flourish.”

That was President Obama speaking Friday in Baltimore at the late Congressmember Elijah Cummings’s funeral. He died earlier this month at the age of 68.