(NNPA)—Sandwiched between the deaths of former New York Gov. Mario Cuomo and popular ESPN sportscaster Stuart Scott, the passing of former Massachusetts Senator Edward W. Brooke III at the age of 95 did not get nearly the attention it deserved.
Though two African Americans were elected to the U.S. Senate during the Reconstruction Era by the Mississippi legislature—Hiram R. Revels and Blanche K. Bruce, both Republicans—Brooke was the first Black elected to the upper chamber by popular vote, beginning his term in 1967. What made his election remarkable at the time was that a Black Republican Episcopalian could be elected statewide in Massachusetts, a predominantly Democratic and Catholic state with a Black population of less than 3 percent. It would be another 25 years before another African American—Carol Moseley Braun of Illinois—would win a U.S. Senate seat (1992).
Prior to his election to the Senate, Brooke served two terms as attorney general of Massachusetts. When he came to Washington, he declined to join the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) and told Time magazine: “I do not intend to be a national leader of the Negro people. I intend to do my job as a senator from Massachusetts.”
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