Former Sen. Edward W. Brooke, R-Mass., died today at the age of 95, said Kirsten Hughes, the chairwoman of the state Republican Party. Brooke was the first African American to be elected to the U.S. Senate since Reconstruction and was an international political figure, garnering respect from both sides of the aisle.
He served from 1967-79, and received a standing ovation from other senators when he was sworn in. President Nixon at several times offered him the posts of secretary of Housing and Urban Development, secretary of Health, Education and Welfare, and ambassador to the United Nations, and Reader’s Digest said in 1967 that Brooke “is plainly on a path that goes beyond whatever personal summit he may reach.”
His achievements “will be as much a standard of a whole society’s progress as they will be the measure of an individual who happens to be Negro.”
His awards and honors are numerous, including the country’s highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, received in 2004.
He is survived by his wife, Anne Fleming, two daughters and one son. Read more at the Boston Globe.
{Andy Heller-Matzav.com Newscenter}
this guy was black?