Candidate Profile: U.S. Rep. Kweisi Mfume Runs In District 7

When voters cast their ballots in the Nov. 3 election, they will be asked to select an individual to serve U.S. District 7, which includes parts of Baltimore County, Baltimore City and Howard County.

Congressman Kweisi Mfume, 72, is running to defend his seat, which he won by special election earlier this year to fill the post left vacant by the late Congressman Elijah Cummings.

He had held positions at both local and federal levels.

From 1979 to 1986, he served on the Baltimore City Council and went on to represent District 7 in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1987 to 1996. He left to head up the NAACP, of which he was president/CEO From 1996 to 2004.

His top priorities are health, safety and "actions by government to make life better," he told WBAL.

Among the issues important to him are raising the federal minimum wage to $15; banning assault weapons and requiring mental competency screenings to purchase firearms; investing in skills-based education; and strengthening the Affordable Care Act, according to The Baltimore Sun.

Lowering the cost of prescription drugs and increasing economic opportunity in neighborhoods are also on his list of priorities, The Washington Post reported.

Mfume grew up in Baltimore. He went to Morgan State University, where he graduated magna cum laude in 1976 and was an adjunct professor in political science and communications. He went on to earn a master's in liberals arts with a concentration in international studies from Johns Hopkins University in 1984.

His 1996 autobiography — "No Free Ride: From The Mean Streets To The Mainstream" — details how, after losing his mother when he was 16 and fathering five children by age 22, he changed his name from Frizzell Gray to Kweisi Mfume and underwent a spiritual awakening that catapulted him on a path through school to the halls of the U.S. Congress to the leader of the NAACP.

Mfume is married and has six sons, according to the Maryland State Archives.