Edward Brooke
On this date in 1966, Edward W. Brooke was elected to the U.S. Senate.
Brooke, a Massachusetts Republican, became the first Black senator since the Reconstruction era in the United States and the first Black senator elected by popular vote.
The 1960s were years of racial violence, and in that year, 43 cities were hit, with 11 killed, more than 400 injured, and 3,000 arrested.
The next year, a record number of rebellions—as black people called them-—made 1967 “the worst year for riots in the United States.”
Black Americans in Congress, 1870-1989.
Bruce A. Ragsdale & Joel D. Treese
U.S. Government Printing Office
Raymond W. Smock, historian and director 1990
E185.96.R25
