[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 190 (Tuesday, November 21, 2017)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1593]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]





                  PASSING OF DAVID S. CUNNINGHAM, JR.

                                 ______
                                 

                            HON. KAREN BASS

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                       Tuesday, November 21, 2017

  Ms. BASS. Mr. Speaker, Los Angeles has lost a great leader, a 
champion for accessible, affordable housing and a true community 
visionary: David Surmier Cunningham, Jr. Dave Cunningham made major 
contributions to our city, including serving on the Los Angeles City 
Council with distinction, honor and dignity from 1973 to 1986, 
succeeding Tom Bradley when he became Mayor. Dave Cunningham and Tom 
Bradley would remain close allies throughout their lives.
   Among the first African American elected leaders in the city, Mr. 
Cunningham represented a district that included Koreatown, the Latino 
neighborhood of Pico-Union, the heavily Jewish district of Fairfax, and 
the majority African American community of West Adams. I was proud to 
be a constituent, and later to represent many of the same diverse 
communities that he served.
   Mr. Cunningham had a remarkable and widely varied career. He served 
in the U.S. Air Force as a cartographer until 1960, the same year he 
says he was bitten by the political bug, when he attended the historic 
Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles and saw John Kennedy win 
the nomination for president.
   He earned a Bachelor's degree in economics and political science at 
the University of California, Riverside in 1962, and then was selected 
for a Coro Foundation Public Affairs internship with Assemblyman 
Charles Warren. The next year he moved to the private sector and spent 
three years in Lagos, Nigeria as West Africa regional manager for the 
Dukane Corporation.
   On return to the U.S., he managed community relations for Hughes 
Aircraft for a year before forming a government consulting partnership 
in 1968 that would be his focus for the next five years, along with 
earning a Master's degree in Urban Studies from Occidental College. In 
1973 he won the responsibility of representing Los Angeles' 10th City 
Council District.
   As a City Councilmember, Mr. Cunningham took on pressing issues from 
opposing drilling in Santa Monica Bay to leading a campaign to divest 
the city's holdings in apartheid-era South Africa. He is perhaps best 
known for his fierce advocacy for improving the education of African 
American students in the Los Angeles Unified School District, and for 
pioneering policies that significantly increased affordable housing in 
the city, including for seniors and citizens returning after 
incarceration.
   He chaired the committee focused on housing and community 
development, and he called on federal housing officials to put 
thousands of boarded-up homes owned by the government back into use. He 
also used his committee role to encourage minority hiring at investment 
banks that sought work with the city. In the early 1980s, he was a key 
ally in Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky's crusade to shut down the Los 
Angeles Police Department's infamous Public Disorder Intelligence 
Division, which kept files on civil rights organizations and other 
activist and civic groups.
   After his city council service, he continued his housing focus, both 
in the private sector as an investment banker, and through a leadership 
position with the Community Housing Equity Corporation. Mr. Cunningham 
cultivated strong relationships with constituents, in particular asking 
his Chief of Staff Maxine Waters and aide Geneva Cox to work with the 
women of the district to develop leadership skills and harness the 
considerable energy and creativity of those women to improve the lives 
of people living in the district. The 10th Council District Women's 
Steering Committee continues its service to this day.
   In 1988 he formed the government relations consulting firm, Dave 
Cunningham and Associates, that would be his focus for the next three 
decades, serving clients from small entrepreneurs and giant 
corporations like Hertz. His devotion to service later in his life 
included his role as state president of the Black American Public 
Affairs Committee (BAPAC), continuing his advocacy for equity, civil 
rights, economic development and community empowerment.
   A man for all seasons, Mr. Cunningham was an accomplished jazz 
musician who played bass in a band, and he even appeared in a Chris 
Rock movie.
   My thoughts are with Mr. Cunningham's son, my friend Judge David S. 
Cunningham, III, and the rest of his loving family and friends. To 
those of us who were fortunate enough to cross Dave's path, he offered 
guidance, wisdom and insight. He will be sorely missed.

                          ____________________