Brooke, Edward W. 1919–

(Edward Brooke, Edward William Brooke)

PERSONAL:

Born October 26, 1919, in Washington, DC; son of Edward W. (an attorney) and Helen Brooke; married Remigia Ferrari-Scacco, 1947 (divorced, 1978); married Anne Fleming, 1979; children: (first marriage) Remi Cynthia, Edwina Helene; (second marriage) Edward. Education: Howard University, B.S., 1940; Boston University, LL.B., 1948, LL.M., 1949.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Miami, FL.

CAREER:

Attorney, legislator, consultant, and writer. Attorney in private practice, c. 1948-60; Boston Finance Commission, chairman, c. 1960-62; private law practice, Roxbury, MA, 1948-60; Boston Finance Commission, chairman, 1961-62; Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Attorney General, 1963-67; U.S. Senate, Washington, DC, senator, 1967-79; Csaplar & Bok, Boston, MA, counsel, beginning 1979; O'Connor & Hannan, Washington, DC, partner, beginning 1979; Bear & Stearns, New York, NY, limited partner, beginning 1979. Chairperson of the National Low-Income Housing Coalition, 1979; chairperson of the board of The Opera Co. of Boston Inc.; chairperson of the board of directors of the Boston Bank Company; member of the board of directors of the Washington Performing Arts Society; chairman of the World Policy Council; member of board of directors of Meditrust Inc., Boston; member of national council, Boy Scouts of America; member of national board, Boys Clubs of America. Military service: U.S. Army, 1942-45; served in World War II in European theater of operations; attained rank of captain; awarded Bronze Star.

MEMBER:

American Bar Association (fellow), American Academy of Arts and Sciences (fellow), Massachusetts Bar Association, Boston Bar Association, American Veterans of World War II, Korea, and Vietnam, Administrative Conference of the U.S.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Distinguished Service Award, AMVETS, 1952; Grand Cross of Italy; Spingarn Medal, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), 1967; Charles Evans Hughes Award, National Conference of Christians & Jews, 1967; Mary Hudson Onley Achievement Award, 2001; Presidential Medal of Freedom, 2004; more than thirty honorary degrees.

WRITINGS:

(With Gieshard Paris) Gieshard Paris and Edward Brooke Address the 53rd Annual Meeting of the National Urban League, Library of Congress (Washington, DC), 1963.

The Challenge of Change, Little, Brown (Boston, MA), 1966.

United States Foreign Assistance for Haiti: Report of Senator Edward W. Brooke, Library of Congress (Washington, DC), 1974.

Report of Developments in United States Relations with the Soviet Union, Poland, and Italy, U.S. Government Printing Office (Washington, DC), 1976.

(With Sam Nunn) An All-Volunteer Force for the United States?, American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research (Washington, DC), 1977.

A Report on West European Communist Parties, Superintendent of Documents (Washington, DC), 1977.

Bridging the Divide: My Life, Rutgers University Press (New Brunswick, NJ), 2007.

SOUND RECORDINGS

Keynote Meeting and Address at the 1963 National Urban League Conference (sound recording), Library of Congress (Washington, DC), 1963.

Busing (sound recording), Library of Congress (Washington, DC), c. 1970s.

Conversation between Senators Claiborne Pell, Edward Brooke and Vice President Nelson Rockefeller (sound recording), Library of Congress (Washington, DC), c. 1970s.

Statement by Edward W. Brooke (sound recording), Library of Congress (Washington, DC), c. 1970s.

Speech by Edward W. Brooke at Brigham Young University (sound recording), Brigham Young University (Provo, UT), 1978.

Broadcasts of Senator Edward Brooke's News Conference (sound recording), Library of Congress (Washington, DC), 1978.

Statements by Carroll Sheehan and Edward W. Brooke (sound recording), Library of Congress (Washington, DC), 1978.

The Edward W. Brooke Collection of Film and Video Materials relating to his Political Career, 1963-1978 is held by the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.

SIDELIGHTS:

The first black man popularly elected to the U.S. Senate since Reconstruction and then to be reelected, Edward W. Brooke began his career as a lawyer before he entered politics. He is also the author of The Challenge of Change, published in 1966 during the Civil Rights movement, and Bridging the Divide: My Life, a memoir published in 2007. The first book focuses on the life of African Americans in the United States and on politics. A member of the Republican Party, Brooke nevertheless criticizes the party in his book. Brooke rebuked the Republican leadership for the strategic error of not targeting the votes of young, urban, and minority citizens, and for fielding out-of-touch, arch conservative candidates like Barry Goldwater, whose failed 1964 presidential bid, in Brooke's view, devastated any promising relationship between the party and the electorate. In his book, the author also writes of his experience as a black soldier during World War II. As Brooke notes, blacks were treated as second-class citizens despite having established themselves as brave and effective soldiers.

In Bridging the Divide, Brooke writes not only of his own life but also of his generation of black men and the challenges that they faced. Among the numerous aspects of his life that the author discusses are his marriages, his political career, his battle with a rare form of male breast cancer, and his vision for America. Of special note is Brooke's discussion of former President Richard M. Nixon, with whom Brooke had many differences. Brooke, who had endorsed Nixon in the 1968 and 1972 campaigns, clashed with the president on a number of issues, including Brooke's failure to vote for three Nixon nominees to the Supreme Court. Brooke became the first senator to publicly call for Nixon's resignation for his involvement in the Watergate scandal.

In his memoir, the author also writes of how he would like to be remembered, which is not as a black man who had a noted political career in a government dominated by whites but as an individual who helped further a multiracial society. "I've embarked on this book hoping there will be lessons in it, that it will provide insight on American politics," Brooke noted on Washingtonpost.com. "Believing with Plato that the unexamined life is not worth living, I have attempted here to offer an honest and frank accounting of my personal and political life. As the readers of my book Bridging the Divide will learn, the two became all too entwined." Referring to the memoir as "engaging," Vanessa Bush noted in Booklist: "Brooke looks back on his time in the Senate as a ‘golden age.’"

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

BOOKS

Brooke, Edward W., Bridging the Divide: My Life, Rutgers University Press (New Brunswick, NJ), 2007.

Contemporary Black Biography, Thomson Gale (Detroit, MI), 1994.

Cutler, John Henry, editor, Ed Brooke: Biography of a Senator, Bobbs-Merrill (Indianapolis, IN), 1972.

Notable Black American Men, Thomson Gale (Detroit, MI), 1998.

PERIODICALS

America's Intelligence Wire, February 18, 2004, "U.S. Census Bureau Black History Month Daily Feature for Feb. 19: Edward Brooke"; February 14, 2007, "Rutgers: Former U.S. Senator Calls for Political Cooperation in Speech at Rutgers."

Booklist, February 1, 2007, Vanessa Bush, review of Bridging the Divide, p. 21.

Christian Science Monitor, May 6, 1996, "Affordable Housing," p. 20.

Crisis, January-February, 2007, Kenneth J. Cooper, "First Black U.S. Senator Elected by Popular Vote Tells His Story," p. 46.

Ebony, October, 1984, Llynn Norment, "The New Life of Former Senator Edward Brooke," p. 58; August, 2003, Marsha Gilbert, "Edward W. Brooke: Former Senator Battles Breast Cancer," p. 78; February, 2007, "Bridging the Divide," p. 31.

Jet, March 19, 1981, "Ex-Senator Brooke Helps Deliver His First Son," p. 17; April 18, 1983, "NAACP Wins Court Battle over Use of Its Initials," p. 5; December 10, 1984, "Edward W. Brooke Named Boston Bank's Chairman," p. 13; August 24, 1992, "Mother of Ex-Sen. Brooke Dies at 100," p. 18; July 12, 2004, "Brooke Gets Medal of Freedom," p. 4.

Los Angeles Times, August 3, 1989, William J. Eaton, "HUD Aides Said to Make Millions from $61,000," p. 19.

Miami Herald, March 19, 2007, Donna Gehrke-White, "A Vote for Miami: Former Sen. Edward Brooke Promotes His New Memoir from His New Home."

New York Times, July 23, 1989, Philip Shenon, "Documents Show Active Pierce Role on Fund Requests; File of Ex-Aide Disclosed; Former Secretary of Housing Intervened on Behalf of at Least Two Republicans," p. 1; November 22, 1992, "Aide Implicates Ex-Senator in Federal Housing Inquiry," p. 34; June 10, 2003, Lynette Clemetson, "Surprise Role for Ex-Senator: Male Breast Cancer Patient," p. 1.

Political Science & Politics, September, 1999, Judson L. Jeffries, "U.S. Senator Edward W. Brooke and Governor L. Douglas Wilder Tell Political Scientists How Blacks Can Win High-Profile Statewide Office," p. 583.

Political Science Quarterly, summer, 1990, Raphael J. Sonenshein, "Can Blacks Win Statewide Elections?"

U.S. News & World Report, February 19, 2007, Diane Cole, "History on the Hill," p. 36.

ONLINE

Bioguide.congress.gov,http://bioguide.congress.gov/ (August 14, 2007), biography of author.

Washingtonpost.com,http://www.washingtonpost.com/ (February 8, 2007) "Ex-Sen. Brooke Discusses Memoir, Race in Politics."

OTHER

Excerpts from Senate Committee Hearing Regarding President Carter's Budget Proposal (sound recording), Library of Congress, 1978.

Human Rights in Haiti: Hearing before the Subcommittee on International Organizations of the Committee on International Relations, House of Representatives, Ninety-fourth Congress, First Session, November 18, 1975 (sound recording), U.S. Government Printing Office, (Washington, DC), 1975.

Interview with Edward W. Brooke (sound recording), Library of Congress, c. 1977.

Meet the Press, [1973-04-22] (sound recording), Library of Congress, 1973.