Robert Brannum: In Remembrance of a "Son" of Bloomingdale/LeDroit Park -- Honorable Edward William Brooke III

From: WARD5@yahoogroups.com Sent: Saturday, January 2, 2016 12:45 PM To: rbrannum@robertbrannum.com Subject: [WARD5] In Remembrance of a "Son" of Bloomingdale/LeDroit Park

 

In Remembrance of a “Son” of Bloomingdale/LeDroit Park

  

The Honorable Edward William Brooke III, former senator from Massachusetts, was a native of Washington, DC. 

In 1966, he became the first African-American popularly elected to the United States Senate, serving until 1979.

                        

"Senator Brooke led an extraordinary life of public service, including his time in the U.S. Army.

As the first African-American elected as a state's Attorney General and

first African-American U.S. Senator elected after reconstruction,

Ed Brooke stood at the forefront of the battle for civil rights and economic fairness…"

President Barack Obama 

***

 “The Senate is filled with self-made men.  Edward Brooke was a self-made senator.”

“ I cannot explain the conundrum that was Edward Brooke,

but I experienced the warmth and integrity that made him successful.”

Representative Eleanor Holmes Norton 

    

October 26, 1919 – January 3, 2015

Edward William Brooke was born on October 26, 1919, in Washington, D.C., the youngest child of Helen (Seldon) Brooke and Edward W. Brooke, an attorney reviewer for the Veterans Administration. The middle-class family resided mostly in black neighborhoods, but for a time lived in a white area so rigidly segregated that blacks were permitted to pass through only if they had a note from a white person.  He attended and was a graduate of Paul Lawrence Dunbar High School and The Howard University.  He later graduated from Boston University Law School.

[Reference: Encyclopedia.Com]

On October 28, 2009, former Senator Edward William Brooke, III was awarded the Congressional  Gold Medal

www.c-span.org/video/?289686-1/edward-brooke-october-26-1919-january-3-2015  

“God of justice, save the people from the clash of race and creed,

From the strife of class and faction, make our nation free indeed;
Keep her faith in simple manhood strong as when her life began,

Till it finds its full fruition in the brotherhood of man.”

(Words spoken by Senator Brooke upon receiving the Congressional Gold Medal)

Robert Vinson Brannum

President Emeritus, DC Federation of Civic Associations, Inc.

Former President, Bloomingdale Civic Association, Inc.

Chairman Emeritus, 5^th District Citizens’ Advsory Council, Inc.

Chairman Emeritus, Ward 5 Democratic Committee