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Massachusetts' Edward Brooke, 1st Black Popularly Elected Senator, Is Remembered

Secretary of State John Kerry pays tribute to the late former Massachusetts Sen. Edward William Brooke III, at the Washington National Cathedral in Washington, during funeral services. Brooke, the first African-American to be popularly elected to the U.S. Senate, died in January. (Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP)
Secretary of State John Kerry pays tribute to the late former Massachusetts Sen. Edward William Brooke III, at the Washington National Cathedral in Washington, during funeral services. Brooke, the first African-American to be popularly elected to the U.S. Senate, died in January. (Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP)

Political leaders from Massachusetts joined hundreds of others at a funeral service Tuesday in Washington, D.C., for Edward Brooke, the first African-American elected to the U.S. Senate by popular vote.

Brooke, a liberal Republican, represented the state in the U.S. Senate from 1967 to 1979. He died Jan. 3 at his home in Florida at the age of 95.

Former Massachusetts Sen. Edward William Brooke speaks in the Rotunda on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Oct. 28, 2009, during a ceremony where he received the Congressional Gold Medal. (Alex Brandon/AP)
Former Massachusetts Sen. Edward William Brooke speaks in the Rotunda on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Oct. 28, 2009, during a ceremony where he received the Congressional Gold Medal. (Alex Brandon/AP)

Secretary of State John Kerry, who held Brooke's former seat from 1985 to 2013, eulogized him at the National Cathedral service as "a man of consummate dignity" who stayed true to himself and his beliefs, The Boston Globe reports.

"Senator Brooke shunned the title of trailblazer, but that's what he was," Kerry said.

Eleanor Holmes Norton, the District of Columbia's delegate to Congress, also praised Brooke at the service, the newspaper reported.

"The Senate has always had its share of self-made men and women. Edward Brooke was a self-made senator," she said.

Brooke, the son of a Veterans Administration lawyer, was from Washington. He graduated from Howard University in 1941. After serving in the Army in World War II, he graduated from Boston University Law School and settled in Boston.

Former Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick, Sen. Edward Markey and former interim Sen. William "Mo" Cowan attended the funeral, along with South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, the first African-American senator elected from the South since the Civil War.

Brooke was buried at Arlington National Cemetery.

The coffin containing the remains of the late Massachusetts Sen. Edward William Brooke III, rests inside the Washington National Cathedral during Tuesday's funeral services. (Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP)
The coffin containing the remains of the late Sen. Edward William Brooke III rests inside the Washington National Cathedral during Tuesday's service. (Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP)

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