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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: JohnM who wrote (11241)	10/7/2003 8:20:41 PM
From: LindyBill	Respond to of 793755

Watts won't be a lock No it won't. And I have no indication yet that he will run. But he would get National money to support him. It would be one of the more interesting races. He would be the first Black Republican senator after reconstruction since Edward W. Brooke III was elected to the U.S. Senate from Massachusetts in 1966. A little history, you may remember him. I guess Teddy replaced him. Became the first African American to serve in that body since Blanche K. Bruce nearly a century before. He was also the first popularly elected black senator, since earlier senators were selected not in a popular vote but by state legislatures. Another unusual fact is that Brooke was a Republican, albeit an independent one, when most African Americans had become Democrats. Given Massachusetts's small black population, Brooke was essentially elected by white people. Brooke was born in Washington, DC in 1919. He studied at the famous Dunbar High School and Howard University, and then went into the U.S. Army during World War II, serving in Italy. He received a Bronze Star. Following the war, he attended Boston University Law School. After several failed attempts to win public office, Brooke was elected Attorney General of Massachusetts in 1962 where he became known as a crime buster. After his election in 1966, he was overwhelmingly re-elected to the Senate in 1972. As a political moderate, Brooke was caught between the conservatives in his own party and the black militants of the Civil Rights Movement. He alienated conservatives by supporting integration, affirmative action, a higher minimum wage, and by opposing President Richard Nixon's nominees to the Supreme Court. He alienated blacks by supporting the Vietnam War and the arms race. Senator Brooke steered his own course, acting on what he believed was right for the nation. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People honored him, and his independent courage, with its prestigious Spingarn Medal in 1967. africana.com