Remarks of Congresswoman Norton for Senator Brooke Congressional Gold Medal Ceremony Today
Remarks of
Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton
For the Congressional Gold Medal Ceremony in Honor of Edward W. Brooke
U.S. Capitol Rotunda
Wed., Oct. 28, 2009
WASHINGTON, DC - Let me guess, Senator Brooke. When you went to Shaw Jr. High, to Dunbar High School, and to Howard University, all in your home community of LeDroit Park not far from here, you may not have envisioned the Capitol Rotunda as the setting to celebrate your 90th birthday, which occurred just two days ago. And we thank the leaders of the House and Senate for timing today's ceremony accordingly. Happy 90th birthday Senator Edward W. Brooke. You may have been an improbable senator, a man born in the District of Columbia who goes off to WWII without having the right to vote for president or mayor or member of the House, much less senator. Perhaps improbable, but certainly not an accidental senator.
It took a man of extraordinary talent, will, appeal, and confidence to become the Barack Obama of the 20th Century by being the first African American to be elected to the United States Senate post-Reconstruction. You did it in 1967 when millions of African Americans in the United States were still denied the right to cast a vote at all. Senator, if you weren't a hurdle jump athlete as a boy, you certainly have made up for it as a man. Which of your hurdles seemed most steep at the time? Becoming a decorated officer in the segregated 336th Combat Infantry Regent during WWII? Was it upon your return when you became an editor of the Law Review at Boston University Law School? Why, before you assumed the post, did you think you could actually become chair of the Boston Finance Commission?
What made you think a black man could win state-wide office as attorney general after all, particularly in a state where only two percent of the population was African American? And how in the world did you think that a lifelong Republican, which you remain today, could be elected to anything in overwhelmingly Democratic Massachusetts? The hurdles you jumped were so high that your life of heroic feats have led home town residents to dare to believe that after two centuries the same Congress that gives you the Congressional Gold Medal today will give voting rights to the people of the District of Columbia this year.
You empowered yourself long before the residents of your home town empowered themselves. When residents of your home town first got the right to vote for their own local officials in 1974, you were already serving your second term in the Senate. But you never forgot your home town. You brilliantly served Massachusetts, and the people of the District of Columbia today salute the people of Massachusetts, whose intelligent courage sent you to Washington to serve their state and our country. You understood well though that the source of your values and your character and your confident determination are rooted in the District, and you repeatedly introduced bills for home rule and voting rights for the residents of the nation's capital at the same time that you were leading the way on the great national issues of the day - opening relations with China, ending apartheid in South Africa, the Brooke amendment providing that tenants of public housing pay no more than 25 percent of their income for housing, the Fair Housing Act, and so much more. It is Massachusetts that sent you home here to give your talents to the country, but we in the District of Columbia will always claim you, as we claim so many of the nation's luminaries born and raised in the District - from Dr. Charles Drew, who discovered the method used today to preserve and store blood plasma for blood banks to Duke Ellington, whose genius was nurtured in home town D.C. before he gave his music as a gift to the world.
The country recognized your breakthrough achievements when in 2004 President George W. Bush awarded you the Presidential Medal of Freedom, which along with the Congressional Gold Medal are the highest honors our country gives. The Congress of the United States today gives you honor where you served.
Awards, even to the least among us, too often are characterized as historic in the hyperbole of the moment, today. But when Senator Ted Kennedy asked the Senate and I asked the House to vote overwhelmingly to award you the Congressional Gold Medal, the Senate and the House together demonstrated that we know a historic figure when we see one. However, Senator Brooke, the highest awards our country can offer are not given for being historic. They are given for service. In your case, service to the United States of America, service to the people of the state of Massachusetts, and yes, Senator, indescribably appreciated service to the people of your home town, the District of Columbia. Happy birthday to you and congratulations Senator.