The Introduction of the Edward William Brooke III Congressional Gold Medal Act

THE INTRODUCTION OF THE EDWARD WILLIAM BROOKE III CONGRESSIONAL GOLD MEDAL ACT

* Ms. NORTON. Madam Speaker, Senator EDWARD KENNEDY, the Massachusetts delegation, Congressional Black Caucus Chair CAROLYN C. KILPATRICK, and I are proud to introduce the Edward William Brooke III Congressional Gold Medal Act. Senator Edward Brooke has been much honored as an outstanding two-term Senator (1967-1979) who is still remembered for his courage and independence on the difficult issues of his time--from the Vietnam War to his leading work in the passage of the Fair Housing Act of 1968. President Bush awarded Senator Brooke the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2004. At 87, his autobiography, Bridging the Divide: My Life tells the Senator's remarkable story. That story began here in the District of Columbia, where Senator Brooke was born and raised, and graduated from Dunbar High School and Howard University. Senator Brooke rose to the rank of captain in the segregated 366th Infantry Regiment in the U.S. Army, and won a Bronze Star Medal and the Distinguished Service Award. His autobiography reads like a personal and political adventure of a man born in the segregated capital, a city with no local elected officials or Members of Congress, who went on to become the first African American official elected statewide, when he won election as Attorney General, the second highest office in the state, and the only Republican to win statewide election that year. In 1966, Senator Brooke became the first African American elected by popular vote to the Senate of the United States. ``Trailblazer' does not aptly describe the courage it took for an African American to run, much less win state-wide office as a Republican in a predominately Democratic state, where 2 percent of the population was African American.

* I take special pride and pleasure in introducing this bill in the House, along with the Massachusetts delegation and the chair of the Congressional Black Caucus. My Massachusetts colleagues justifiably claim Senator Brooke as a son of Massachusetts. We in the District concede that Massachusetts voters also deserve credit in refusing to allow racial barriers, that still remain formidable in most states, overwhelm Senator Brooke's qualifications for high office. However, I hope that Massachusetts citizens will forgive the residents of the Senator's hometown if we insist that Edward William Brooke III be counted the adopted son of Massachusetts. Senator Brooke's family, the District of Columbia Public Schools, Howard University, and the proud African American community both sheltered and prepared him for his remarkable life and service to the people of Massachusetts and the Nation.

* We are especially grateful for the Senator's devotion to H.R. 328, the District of Columbia Fair and Equal House Voting Rights Act of 2007. Senator Brooke has worked devotedly for passage of the pending legislation. While in the Senate, he never forgot that his hometown had no Senator and needed him, too. Speaking on the Senate floor for passage of the Voting Rights Amendment in 1978, Senator Brooke made it clear, as he does today, that this matter also was personal for him. He said, in part, ``My enthusiastic endorsement of House Joint Resolution 554 is based primarily on fundamental concepts of liberty and justice, but my support and interest are also intensely personal, for my roots are in Washington, D.C. I was born and raised here. I attended and graduated from Shaw Junior High School, Dunbar High School, and Howard University. For as long as I can remember, I have fought, along with family and friends and colleagues, to attain the goal of providing for the citizens of the District of Columbia the same rights and privileges that other citizens throughout the Nation have enjoyed.' Because the Congressional Gold Medal is the highest honor that Congress can bestow, it is necessary that at least 290 Representatives and 67 Senators sign on as cosponsors. I urge every Member of the House and Senate to become co-sponsors before the end of Black History Month on February 28th.

RAISING THE BAR: PIONEERS IN THE LEGAL PROFESSION

Born October 26, 1919, Edward Brooke was the first African American elected to major statewide office in Massachusetts (Attorney General, 1962) and the first African American elected and re-elected to the U.S. Senate (1967-79) by popular vote. His father, Edward Brooke, Jr. was a graduate of Howard University School of Law (1918) and served as an attorney for the Veterans Administration for 50 years--an exceptional achievement for an African-American person at that time.

Brooke attended public schools in Washington, DC, and graduated from Paul Laurence Dunbar High School in 1936. When he entered Howard University he originally planned to be a pre-med. major, but he changed to Sociology because he found the coursework more interesting. His professor of Political Science at Howard was diplomat, statesman and Nobel Prize winner, Ralph Bunche.

After graduating from Howard and the Reserve Officers Training Corps in 1941, he was drafted into the U.S. Army. He served with the all-Black 366th Combat Infantry Regiment. In charge of discipline and recreation at Fort Devens, in Massachusetts, Brooke defended enlisted men in military court cases.

For his leadership during 195 days in combat in Italy, he was awarded the Bronze Star and promoted to captain. He also received the Distinguished Service Award.

Motivated by his experience in the army, Brooke enrolled in Boston University Law School in 1946, and became editor of the Boston University Law Review. He earned an LLB in 1948 and an LLM in 1949 and began his private law practice in Roxbury, after declining offers to join other firms, including an offer from his father to begin a father and son practice in Washington, DC. Friends encouraged Brooke to run for political office. His first efforts to enter politics on the Republican slate in 1950 and 1952 were promising, but unsuccessful.

After those bids for office, he increased his involvement with community affairs, and became active with various groups, including the Boston branch of the NAACP and the Greater Boston Urban League, the Boy Scouts of America and the American Veterans of WW II. He also focused on his law practice during that time. In 1960 he ran for Massachusetts' Secretary of State and became the first African American to be nominated by a major party for a statewide office in Massachusetts--considered quite an accomplishment since there were only 93,000 black residents in the state. He received over one million votes, but did not win that election. In 1962, without the support of Republican party leaders who had endorsed his candidacy for lower offices earlier, he won the election to the office of Attorney General and became the first African American to be elected as a state's attorney general.

As Massachusetts' Attorney General, he battled corruption in government and targeted organized crime. He proposed laws that protected consumers, struck at housing discrimination and reduced air pollution. Brooke worked closely with the Massachusetts Crime Commission and successfully conducted the massive investigation in the ``Boston Strangler Case.' Due to some of his seemingly conservative and unpopular stances on issues such as a black student boycott of Boston's public schools, he endured the wrath of civil rights leaders.

In 1965 he decided to seek election to the U. S. Senate. In his book, The Challenge of Change: Crisis in Our Two-Party System, published in 1966, he attempted to encourage his Republican Party to become more responsive to social change, and he identified discrimination against 10 percent of the country's population, due to the color of their skin, as an important issue. Edward Brooke won the election, with a margin of almost a half million votes, and became the first African American to serve since Reconstruction. (He was the third black American in the U.S. Senate and the first to win a seat in a popular election.) He served two terms--enjoying an overwhelming re-election in 1972.

Appointed by President Lyndon Johnson to the Commission on Civil Disorders, Senator Brooke's work included making recommendations for the protection of black people and civil rights workers from harassment. Later, that work was expanded to include protection against housing discrimination, which led to the 1968 Civil Rights Act. He was a strong opponent of the escalation of the Vietnam War and fought proposals that would have expanded Cold War nuclear arsenals. He also worked to improve relations with the People's Republic of China, which led to the recognition of that country.

Although he had supported Richard Nixon's campaigns in 1968 and 1972, he clashed with Nixon on several issues, including the nomination of two anti-civil rights judges to the Supreme Court. He was the first senator to call for the President's resignation during the Watergate scandal.

After Senator Brooke was defeated in the 1978 election, he resumed his law practice and headed the National Low Income Housing Coalition. Senator Brooke is the father of three and currently lives with his wife in Warrenton, Virginia. He has received over 30 honorary degrees and awards, including the NAACP Springarn Medal and the National Conference of Christians & Jews' Charles Evans Hughes Award.

Throughout his career, Senator Brooke has endeavored to make America a better place for all Americans. His efforts and service to the commonwealth of Massachusetts and the United States were recognized recently, when a state courthouse in Massachusetts was named the Edward W. Brooke courthouse. He thus became the first black American to have a state courthouse named in his honor.

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