Early Years
Brooke was born in Washington, D.C., in 1919 and attended Dunbar High School. Upon his graduation from Howard University in 1941, he spent five years as an officer in the Army and saw combat in Italy during World War II as a member of the segregated 366th Infantry Regiment, earning a Bronze Star. In Italy Brooke met his future wife Remigia Ferrari-Scacco, with whom he had two daughters, Remi and Edwina. Following his discharge, Brooke graduated from the Boston University School of Law in 1948. In 1950 he ran for a seat in the Massachusetts House of Representatives, but lost. Brooke then made two more tries for office, including one for secretary of state, but lost both races.
Brooke was the chairman of Finance Commission of Boston from 1961 to 1962. He was elected Attorney General of Massachusetts in 1962 and re-elected in 1964, becoming the first elected African-American Attorney General of any state in American history. In this position, Brooke gained a reputation as a vigorous prosecutor of organized crime, and coordinated with local police departments on the Boston strangler case, although the press mocked him for permitting an alleged psychic to participate in the investigation. Brooke was portrayed in the 1968 film dramatizing the case by William Marshall.
Read more about this topic: Edward Brooke
Famous quotes containing the words early and/or years:
“Betwixt the black fronts long-withdrawn
A light-blue lane of early dawn,”
—Alfred Tennyson (1809–1892)
“After years of vain familiarity, some distant gesture or unconscious behavior, which we remember, speaks to us with more emphasis than the wisest or kindest words. We are sometimes made aware of a kindness long passed, and realize that there have been times when our Friends’ thoughts of us were of so pure and lofty a character that they passed over us like the winds of heaven unnoticed; when they treated us not as what we were, but as what we aspired to be.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)