Edward Brooke
Edward William Brooke III (October 26, 1919 –January 3, 2015) a Republican politician, became the first African American popularly elected to the United States Senate.[1] Brooke grew up in Washington, D.C. at a time when the nation’s capital was still highly segregated. He attended all-black schools, graduated from Howard University, fought in Italy with a segregated infantry unit in World War II, and then returned to the United States to earn a law degree from Boston University. Entering state politics in Massachusetts in the 1950s,
Brooke ran as a Republican because of his family tradition, and because he admired the Republican virtues of duty, self-help, thrift, and free enterprise. He distrusted big government and agreed with Lincoln that “government should do for the people only that which they cannot do for themselves.”[2] Brooke viewed the Massachusetts Democratic Party as corrupt and mean-spirited, launching McCarthyite attacks on Harvard and resisting anti-discrimination laws, preferring the state’s moderate-dominated Republican Party, which upheld civil rights and civil liberties.
In 1966, Brooke was elected the first African-American Attorney General of a U.S. state.[3] In this position, he gained a reputation as a vigorous prosecutor of organized crime and corruption.[4]
In 1966, Brooke was elected to the U.S. Senate.[5] He served for two terms, from 1967 to 1979. The Black vote had, according to an article in Time Magazine, “no measurable bearing” on the election as less than 3% of the state’s population was Black, and Brooke’s Democratic opponent also supported civil rights for Blacks. Brooke said, “I do not intend to be a national leader of the Negro people”, and Time Magazine further reported that Brooke “condemned both Stokely Carmichael and Georgia’s Lester Maddox” as extremists.[6]
Brooke organized the Senate’s “Wednesday Club” of progressive Republicans who met for Wednesday lunches and strategy discussions.[7] Brooke supported Michigan Governor George W. Romney’s[8] and New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller’s bids for the 1968 GOP presidential nomination against that of Richard Nixon, and Brooke often differed with President Nixon on matters of social policy and civil rights.[9]
By his second year in the Senate, Brooke had taken his place as a leading advocate against discrimination in housing and on behalf of affordable housing. With Walter Mondale, a Minnesota Democrat and future U.S. Vice President and Democratic Presidential nominee, Brooke co-authored the 1968 Fair Housing Act, prohibiting discrimination in housing. Brooke continued to propose adding stronger enforcement provisions to housing laws during his Senate career. In 1969, Congress enacted the “Brooke Amendment” to the federal publicly assisted housing program, which limited a tenant’s out-of-pocket rent expenditure to 25 percent of his or her income.[10]
During the Nixon presidency, Brooke opposed repeated Nixon Administration attempts to close down the Job Corps and the Office of Economic Opportunity and to weaken the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission—all foundational elements of President Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society.[11]
In 1969, Brooke was a leader of the bipartisan coalition that defeated the Senate confirmation of Clement Haynsworth, the President’s conservative nominee to the Supreme Court. A few months later, Brooke again organized sufficient Republican support to defeat Nixon’s second Supreme Court nominee, Harrold Carswell. On November 4, 1973, shortly after the Watergate-related “Saturday night massacre,” Brooke became the first Republican to call on President Nixon to resign.[12]
Brooke was a leader in the enactment of the Equal Credit Act, which ensured married women the right to establish credit in their own name.[13] In 1974, with Indiana Democratic senator Birch Bayh, Brooke led the fight to retain Title IX, a 1972 amendment to the Higher Education Act of 1965, which guaranteed equal educational opportunity (including athletic participation) to girls and women.[14] In 1975, with the extension and expansion of the Voting Rights Act at stake, Brooke faced senator John Stennis (D-Mississippi) in “extended debate” and won the Senate’s support for its extension. Senator Brooke also sponsored wide-scale, legalized abortion.[15][16]
Brooke was far ahead of his time in envisioning a post-racial America. He lamented that “Like a life form trapped in amber, I was forever categorized in terms of race.” He wanted to prove that an African American could impartially represent people of all races, and that “white voters would vote for qualified Negro candidates, just as Negroes had voted for qualified white candidates.”[17] At a time of Black Power separatism and rising black-white antagonism, Brooke believed the Republicans had a more hopeful vision of race relations. His victories implied that equal opportunity for blacks was possible both within the Republican Party and within the American political system.[18]
In place of radical rhetoric, Brooke supported progressive alternatives to Lyndon Johnson’s War on Poverty, such as the Ripon Society’s negative income tax, which would benefit lower-income Americans of all races.[19][20]
For more about Brooke, check out the two videos below, one containing an interview with Senator Brooke on why he was a Republican, and a second video of President Obama's speech about Senator Brooke.
[1] Smith, Timothy. “Edward W. Brooke, first African American popularly elected to U.S. Senate, dies at 95.” The Washington Post. January 3, 2015.
[2] Geoffrey Kabaservice, Rule and Ruin: The Downfall of Moderation and the Destruction of the Republican Party, From Eisenhower to the Tea Party (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012), 182. Kindle edition.
[3] “Former senator awarded Congressional Gold Medal”. CNN. October 28, 2009.
[4] John Henry Cutler, Ed Brooke: Biography of a Senator. (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill Company, 1972) 104–105.
[5] Though Brooke had slipped in the polls against his Democratic opponent after several racial riots that summer, he ended up with a convincing 61 percent of the vote. Ronald Reagan wrote to congratulate him on what he considered to be “a victory not only over bigotry but also for all of us Americans who believe that under our system a man can rise as far as his talents and abilities will take him. Your victory does more than any other this year to re-establish the Republican Party in the minds of the people as a party of all the people.” (Geoffrey Kabaservice, Rule and Ruin: The Downfall of Moderation and the Destruction of the Republican Party, From Eisenhower to the Tea Party (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012), 188. Kindle edition).
[6] “The Senate: An Individual Who Happens To Be a Negro.” Time. February 2, 1967.
[7] Giroux, Greg “Edward Brooke Served in a Different Era of Senate Politics.” Bloomberg News, January 4, 2015.
[8] “The Senate: An Individual Who Happens To Be a Negro.” Time, February 17, 1967.
[9] Douglas Martin. “Edward W. Brooke III, 95, Senate Pioneer, Is Dead”. New York Times. January 3, 2015.
[10] Mark Feeney. “Edward W. Brooke, first African-American elected to the US Senate since Reconstruction, dies”. The Boston Globe, January 4, 2015.
[11] “Edward Brooke,” The Biography.com website, http://www.biography.com/people/edward-brooke-37418 “Edward Brooke Biography U.S. Representative.”
[12] Mark Feeney. “Edward W. Brooke, first African-American elected to the US Senate since Reconstruction, dies”. The Boston Globe, January 4, 2015.
[13] “Edward Brooke,” The Biography.com website, http://www.biography.com/people/edward-brooke-37418
[14] “Edward Brooke,” The Biography.com website, http://www.biography.com/people/edward-brooke-37418 * “Edward Brooke.” Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia.
[15] The Appropriations bill for HHS became the battleground over this issue because it funds Medicaid. The pro-life movement fought, eventually successfully, to prohibit funding for abortions of low-income women insured by Medicaid. Brooke led the fight against restrictions in the Senate Appropriations Committee and in the House-Senate Conference until his defeat.
[16] “A Brand New Race for 2nd Place.” Time. November 17, 1975 -11-17.
[17] Geoffrey Kabaservice, Rule and Ruin: The Downfall of Moderation and the Destruction of the Republican Party, From Eisenhower to the Tea Party (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012), 184. Kindle edition.
[18] Geoffrey Kabaservice, Rule and Ruin: The Downfall of Moderation and the Destruction of the Republican Party, From Eisenhower to the Tea Party (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012), 184. Kindle edition.
[19] Geoffrey Kabaservice, Rule and Ruin: The Downfall of Moderation and the Destruction of the Republican Party, From Eisenhower to the Tea Party (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012), 184. Kindle edition.
[20] Brooke felt that this path would break up the urban political machines that held welfare recipients in check, and it would give expression to the Republican belief that individuals usually make more efficient economic decisions than government agencies.