Born: October 26, 1919, Washington, DC

Education: Howard University, B.S., 1941; Boston University School of Law, LL.B., 1948

Died: January 3, 2015, Coral Gables, FL

Raised in a middle-class family, Brooke finished Dunbar High School and Howard University in Washington, DC. An army officer and combat hero in World War II, he defended black soldiers in court-martial trials before returning to study and practice law in Boston.

He achieved national recognition. Over time black Bostonians were loyal Democrats, but he became a Republican. Also a liberal, he ran unsuccessfully for the state House in 1950. But an appointment to the city's Finance Commission boosted his electability. Elected attorney general (1962–66), tough on crime and political corruption, he gained much influence and won two US Senate terms (1966–78). The first African American elected to that body since Reconstruction, he served during an era when racial conflict and the Vietnam War divided America.

Seeking to be judged by merit rather than race, Brooke was successful in the Senate. A member of the banking, aeronautical and space sciences committees, and the president's National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders, he also fought for and retained an open-housing clause in the Civil Rights Act of 1968. His pro-war position alienated many civil rights and peace activists, though he championed policies to aid Third World nations and sanction apartheid in South Africa.