The Obama Administration honored Howard alumnus and former Senator Edward Brooke (D-MA) with a Congressional Gold Medal, one of the nation’s most prestigious awards.
As President Barack Obama noted, Brooke, at 90-years old, is a man of many firsts.
“When he ran for statewide office in Massachusetts, and one reporter pointed out that he was black, Republican, and Protestant, seeking office in a white, Democratic, and Catholic state, Ed was unfazed. It was, to say the least, an improbable profile for the man who would become the first African American state attorney general, and the first popularly elected African American senator,” President Obama said before a medal ceremony audience gathered in the Capitol Rotunda yesterday
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