House Minority Leader Jeffries’s father dies at 85

Marland Jeffries, father of House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), died Sunday, according to the younger Jeffries’s office.

Marland Jeffries, 85, was a former substance abuse counselor who raised two sons with his wife of 56 years, Laneda, in Brooklyn in the 1970s and 1980s. The younger Jeffries grew up in an area known both for its central role in Black culture and representation and for the role it played in the drug epidemics of the era.

Rep. Jeffries has publicly credited his parents for his “public service spirit.”

Marland Jeffries is also survived by his younger son Hasan Jeffries, a historian at Ohio State University, five grandchildren and his brother, Leonard Jeffries.

“Marland Jeffries, a graduate of Central State University in Ohio and Columbia University in New York, and proud member of Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, Inc., will be dearly missed. Those who love him are thankful for the full life that he lived. The Jeffries family asks for privacy at this time,” a statement from Rep. Jeffries’s office read.