[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 26 (Monday, February 12, 2007)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E324-E325]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




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

                                 ______
                                 

                       HON. ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON

                      of the district of columbia

                    in the house of representatives

                       Monday, February 12, 2007

  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

[[Page E325]]

     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.

                          ____________________