Norton to Speak at Funeral of Native Son and Former Massachusetts Senator Edward Brooke, Tomorrow

WASHINGTON, D.C.—Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) will speak at the funeral service for former Massachusetts Senator Edward Brooke, the nation's first popularly elected African American senator, on Tuesday, March 10, at 11:00 a.m. at the Washington National Cathedral (3101 Wisconsin Avenue NW). U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry will also deliver remarks at the service. Senator Brooke, who was born in 1919, grew up here in LeDroit Park and attended Dunbar High School in the District, where Norton also went to school. Norton's bill in 2009 awarded Brooke the Congressional Gold Medal, the highest civilian honor awarded by Congress. In 2004, President George W. Bush awarded Brooke the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

"It will be a special privilege to speak at Tuesday's service for the District's most distinguished native son and my friend, Edward Brooke. Senator Brooke is larger than life for those of us who share his birthplace. A man of many extraordinary gifts, Senator Brooke used them for us in the Senate when he served, and again recently when we barely missed achieving the D.C. House Voting Rights Act, which he championed among his friends in the Senate."