Edward Brooke

Edward Brooke was the first African-American since Reconstruction in 1874 to have been elected to the United States Senate and he was the first African-American United States senator since 1881 to have held a United States Senate seat.

Edward Brooke was also the first African-American United States senator ever to have been re-elected to the United States Senate.

Edward William Brooke III (October 26, 1919 – January 3, 2015) was an American lawyer and politician who represented Massachusetts in the United States Senate from 1967 to 1979.

A member of the Republican Party, he was the first African American elected to the United States Senate by popular vote.

Edward William Brooke III was born on October 26, 1919, in Washington, D.C., to a middle-class black family.

His father Edward William Brooke Jr. was a lawyer and graduate of Howard University who worked with the Department of Veterans Affairs, and his mother was Helen (née Seldon) Brooke.

He was the second of three children.

Brooke was raised in a racially segregated environment that was "insulated from the harsh realities of the Deep South", with Brooke rarely interacting with the white community.

He attended Dunbar High School—then one of the most prestigious academic high schools for African Americans—and graduated in 1936.

After graduating, he enrolled in Howard University, where he first considered studying in medicine, before ending up studying social studies and political science.

He saw combat in Italy as a member of the segregated 366th Infantry Regiment.

Brooke spent 195 days with his unit in Italy.

There, his fluent Italian and his light skin enabled him to cross enemy lines to communicate with Italian partisans.

By the end of the war, Brooke had attained the rank of captain, a Bronze Star Medal, and a Distinguished Service Award.

Brooke's time in the army exposed him to the inequality and racism which existed in the army system.

This, combined with the signing of Executive Order 9066, led him to rethink his support of Democratic President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

His time in the army also changed his perception of race, with him meeting his future-wife Remigia Ferrari-Scacco in Italy.

He reasoned that "race had not mattered during our courtship in Italy, and therefore it should not have mattered in the United States".

After graduating from Boston University, Brooke worked as a lawyer.

He declined offers to join established law firms, instead opening his own law practice in the Roxbury neighborhood of Boston.

Brooke graduated from university in 1941, with a bachelor of science degree, After serving in the US Army during World War II, Brooke graduated from the Boston University School of Law in 1948.

"I never studied much at Howard," he later reflected, "but at Boston University, I didn't do much else but study."

Brooke enlisted in the United States Army immediately following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

He was commissioned as a second lieutenant.

Born to a middle-class black family, Brooke was raised in Washington, D.C. After attending Howard University, he graduated from Boston University School of Law in 1948 after serving in the U.S. Army during World War II.

Beginning in 1950, he became involved in politics, when he ran for a seat in the Massachusetts House of Representatives.

Brooke began his foray in politics in 1950, when, at the urging of friends from his former army unit, Brooke ran for a seat in the Massachusetts House of Representatives.

Brooke didn't affiliate with both of the major parties, choosing instead to run in both the Democratic and Republican primaries.

He won the Republican nomination, and was endorsed by the party, but lost the general election in a landslide to his Democratic opponent.

After serving as chairman of the Boston Finance Commission, Brooke was elected attorney general in 1962, becoming the first African-American to be elected attorney general of any state.

Prior to serving in the Senate, he served as the Attorney General of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts from 1963 until 1967.

He served as attorney general for four years, before running for Senate in 1966.

In the election, he defeated Democratic former Governor Endicott Peabody in a landslide, and was seated on January 3, 1967.

In the Senate, Brooke aligned with the liberal faction in the Republican party.

He co-wrote the Civil Rights Act of 1968, which prohibited housing discrimination.

He was re-elected to a second term in 1972, after defeating attorney John Droney.

Brooke became a prominent critic of Republican President Richard Nixon, and was the first Senate Republican to call for Nixon's resignation in light of the Watergate scandal.

In 1978, he ran for a third term, but was defeated by Democrat Paul Tsongas.

After leaving the Senate, Brooke practiced law in Washington, D.C., and was affiliated with various businesses and nonprofit organizations.

Brooke died in 2015, at his home in Coral Gables, Florida, at the age of 95, and was the last living former U.S. senator born in the 1910s.