BALTIMORE — The city of Baltimore is mourning the loss of Rep. Elijah Cummings, who represented Maryland’s 7th Congressional District until his death Thursday. He was 68.

Cummings died from complications of “longstanding health challenges” at 2:30 a.m. EDT at Gilchrist Hospice Care, his office said in a statement. Flowers had been placed in front of his downtown offices within hours and, at city hall, flags were flying at half staff.

“A fearless champion of justice who fought tirelessly for civil rights & equality for everyone, including his beloved Baltimore,” the NAACP said in a statement. “Our democracy is stronger because of him.”

Baltimore Mayor Bernard C. Young lamented the loss of “a powerful voice and one of the strongest and most gifted crusaders for social justice,” in a statement Thursday.

“He was, simply put, a man of God who never forgot his duty to fight for the rights and dignity of the marginalized and often forgotten,” Young said of Cummings.

A small group of reporters gathered outside Cummings’ Baltimore home on a quiet tree-lined street in the 2000 block of Madison Avenue. The house bears a sign in the window that reads “Re-elect Cummings for Congress,” and a single bouquet of white flowers lay on its front steps. 

Some neighbors were peeking out of windows or sitting on their stoops, including Darrin Timpson, 23.

“It’s very sad for his family and the black community,” he said. “That’s one person that really has not let the city down.”

Timpson remembered the late congressman was the guest speaker at a football banquet he attended when he was 13 and said he was “distraught” when he learned of his death.

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Cynthia Wilson, 54, said residents are left wondering who will be able to pick up where Cummings left off.

“We need somebody that’s strong and who will fight for Baltimore just like he did,” she said, sitting in the doorway of the home she’s lived in for 12 years. “He protected Baltimore, he loved Baltimore and he did everything he could to help Baltimore … He meant a lot to Baltimore and we was blessed to have him for as long as we did.”

Wilson said she respected Cummings for always defending Baltimore, including when President Donald Trump derided Cummings’ district as a “rodent-infested mess” where “no human being would want to live.”

But she said it was seeing him march in the streets during the riots after Freddie Gray’s death in 2015 that “gave him king status.” A state of emergency was declared in the city when hundreds took to the streets after Gray, 25, died of injuries sustained during police transport.

“Nobody ever stood up like he did,” Wilson said. “He actually walked in the street while they (were) throwing trash cans and all that. And he just locked arms with people and kept going.”

One of those people was Bishop Walter Thomas, who has served as the pastor of New Psalmist Baptist Church since 1975. Thomas remembered forming a human chain with Cummings and another church member to walk down North Avenue as riots began on the night of Gray’s funeral.

“After we went out there that night, the night of Freddie Gray’s funeral, he was back on that street trying to bring calm,” Thomas said of Cummings. “He was out there every night calling folks to civility, calling folks to trust the process and I shall never forget that.”

Thomas said Cummings was his good friend for nearly 40 years and that he and his wife attended church nearly every Sunday, barring a legislative commitment.

As the son of sharecroppers who later became Pentecostal preachers, it was Cummings’ faith that drove him to serve, Thomas said. He said Cummings’ death has devastated the church.

“Everybody’s crushed,” Thomas said. “Here, he is more than just the United States congressman, he is brother Elijah Cummings.”

The pastor lamented the void left by Cummings’ death, but said his legacy will forever live.

“Just to call his name is to define a category in which he stands singular and alone,” Thomas said. “It’s like saying the name Michael Jordan. You don’t need to say any more, when you say the name Elijah Cummings, it will say it all.”

Follow N’dea Yancey-Bragg on Twitter: @NdeaYanceyBragg