Former Sen. Edward W. Brooke, the first black U.S. senator elected by popular vote, was remembered at his funeral as an inspiration to thousands of young Americans and a moral compass for fellow lawmakers before he was laid to rest Tuesday.
Lawmakers, former colleagues and family packed a ceremony at the National Cathedral in Washington that paid tribute to the liberal Massachusetts Republican's life and trailblazing work. Brooke, first elected to the Senate in 1966, died Jan. 3 at the age of 95.
"Ed Brooke didn't back down," Secretary of State John Kerry said in a tribute at his funeral, praising the late senator's moral compass and calling him "the embodiment of a style of legislating that valued substance over rhetoric and public needs over public agendas."
"Brooke shunned the title of trailblazer, but that's what he was," Kerry added.
Washington, D.C., Del. Eleanor Holmes-Norton called the Washington-born Brooke "a self-made senator," pointing out that when he was born in 1919, the District of Columbia didn't have a local government.
"He led a phenomenal life," Brooke's chief counsel Ralph Neas, who counted Brooke as his first-ever boss and his life-long mentor, told NBC outside the funeral. "His leadership was indispensable. He was my guidepost for the last 40-plus years."
Also attending the funeral were former Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick, former Massachusetts Gov. Mo Cowan and many other lawmakers.
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A former captain in the Army, Brooke was later buried with full military honors Tuesday afternoon at Arlington National Cemetery, where his widow Anne was presented the flag.
Before he died, Brooke had told The Associated Press he was "thankful to God" that he lived to see President Barack Obama's election. And the president was on hand in October 2009 when Brooke was presented with the Congressional Gold Medal, the highest award Congress has to honor civilians.
Obama hailed Brooke as "a man who's spent his life breaking barriers and bridging divides across this country."
A Republican in a largely Democratic state, Brooke was one of Massachusetts' most popular political figures during most of his 12 years in the Senate.
Brooke earned his reputation as a Senate liberal in part by becoming the first Republican senator to publicly urge President Richard Nixon to resign. He helped lead the forces in favor of the Equal Rights Amendment and was a defender of school busing to achieve racial integration, a bitterly divisive issue in Boston.
He also lent his name to the Brooke amendment to the federal housing act, passed in 1969, which limited to 25 percent the amount of income a family must pay for rent in public housing.
Brooke received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in a White House ceremony in 2004. Five years later, when Brooke received the congressional honor in Washington, he cited the issues facing Congress - health care, the economy and the wars overseas - and called on lawmakers to put their partisan differences aside.
