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
“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, 5th
District Citizens’ Advsory Council, Inc.
Chairman Emeritus, Ward 5
Democratic Committee
