{"id":39250,"date":"2015-01-04T01:02:50","date_gmt":"2015-01-04T01:02:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/wordpress\/?p=39250"},"modified":"2015-01-04T17:05:13","modified_gmt":"2015-01-04T17:05:13","slug":"edward-brooke-first-black-elected-u-s-senator-dies-at-95","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=39250","title":{"rendered":"Edward Brooke, first black elected U.S. senator, dies at 95"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.usatoday.com\/story\/news\/politics\/2015\/01\/03\/edward-brooke-obituary\/21236067\/\" target=\"_blank\"><em><strong>Edward Brooke, first black elected U.S. senator, dies at 95<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.usatoday.com\" target=\"_blank\">USA Today<\/a><br \/>\n2015-01-03<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/ndiblasio\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>Natalie DiBlasio<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Former <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Massachusetts\" target=\"_blank\">Massachusetts<\/a> U.S. senator <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Edward_Brooke\" target=\"_blank\">Edward Brooke<\/a>, the first African American to be elected to the Senate by popular vote, has died at age 95.<\/p>\n<p>Ralph Neas, a former aide, said Brooke died Saturday of natural causes at his home in <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Coral_Gables,_Florida\" target=\"_blank\">Coral Gables, Fla<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We lost a truly remarkable public servant,&#8221; says Massachusetts <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Charlie_Baker_(politician)\" target=\"_blank\">Gov.-elect Charlie Baker<\/a>. &#8220;A war hero, a champion of equal rights for all and an example that barriers can be broken, Sen. Brooke accomplished more than most aspire to.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The only blacks to serve in the Senate before Brooke were two men in the 1870s when senators were still chosen by state legislatures.<\/p>\n<p>Brooke, a liberal Republican, was elected to the Senate in 1966 and served two terms. He earned his reputation as a liberal after becoming the first Republican senator to publicly urge <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Richard_Nixon\" target=\"_blank\">President Nixon<\/a> to resign&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;Historian Dennis Nordin has researched and written about African-American politicians and devoted a chapter to Brooke in his book, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=24027\" target=\"_blank\"><em>From Edward Brooke to Barack Obama: African American Political Success, 1966-2008<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Nordin told <em>The Greenville News<\/em> that Brooke&#8217;s political career shows independence from the GOP&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>Read the entire obituary <a href=\"http:\/\/www.usatoday.com\/story\/news\/politics\/2015\/01\/03\/edward-brooke-obituary\/21236067\/\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Edward Brooke, first black elected U.S. senator, dies at 95 USA Today 2015-01-03 Natalie DiBlasio Former Massachusetts U.S. senator Edward Brooke, the first African American to be elected to the Senate by popular vote, has died at age 95. Ralph Neas, a former aide, said Brooke died Saturday of natural causes at his home in [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,1245,8,26,20],"tags":[11119,11122,18976,18975,3712,18977,2346],"class_list":["post-39250","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-biography","category-media-archive","category-politics","category-usa","tag-dennis-nordin","tag-edward-brooke","tag-edward-w-brooke","tag-edward-w-brooke-iii","tag-massachusetts","tag-natalie-diblasio","tag-usa-today"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39250","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=39250"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39250\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=39250"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=39250"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=39250"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}