Edward Brooke, 1st black elected US senator, dies

Associated Press

BOSTON

Former U.S. Sen. Edward W. Brooke, a liberal Republican who became the first black in U.S. history to win popular election to the Senate, died Saturday. He was 95.

Brooke died of natural causes at his Coral Gables, Fla., home, said Ralph Neas, Brooke’s former chief counsel. Brooke was surrounded by his family.

Brooke was elected to the Senate in 1966, becoming the first black to sit in that branch from any state since Reconstruction and one of nine blacks who have ever served there — including President Barack Obama.

Brooke told The Associated Press he was “thankful to God” that he lived to see Obama’s election. And the president was on hand in October 2009 when Brooke was presented with the Congressional Gold Medal, the highest award Congress has to honor civilians. On Saturday, Obama said Brooke stood at the front of the battle for civil rights and economic fairness in the U.S.

Obama said Brooke sought to build consensus and understanding regardless of political party and that he always was working to find practical solutions to the country’s challenges.

A Republican in a largely Democratic state, Brooke was one of Massachusetts’ most-popular political figures during most of his 12 years in the Senate.

Massachusetts Democratic Gov. Deval Patrick, the state’s first black governor, remembered Brooke for his unselfish public service.

Brooke earned his reputation as a Senate liberal in part by becoming the first Republican senator to publicly urge President Richard Nixon to resign. He helped lead the forces in favor of the Equal Rights Amendment and was a defender of school busing to achieve racial integration, a bitterly divisive issue in Boston.

However, late in his second term, Brooke divorced his wife of 31 years, Remigia, in a stormy proceeding that attracted national attention.

Repercussions from the case spurred an investigation into his personal finances by the Senate Ethics Committee and a probe by the state welfare department and ultimately cost him the 1978 election. He was defeated by Democrat Rep. Paul E. Tsongas.