The first black man popularly elected to the U.S. Senate died Saturday of natural causes at the age of 95.
CBS News reported that Edward W. Brooke (R.), former Massachusetts senator, died in his Coral Gables, Fla., home surrounded by his family.
Brooke became the first black man to sit in the Senate branch from any state since Reconstruction, and is one of only nine blacks to serve there, including President Obama.
CNN said Brooke served in the Senate from 1967-1979. He is the only black man to be re-elected to a second term.
Brooke kicked off his career in Massachusetts by winning the attorney general seat in 1962 after finishing law school.
Brooke grew up in Washington, D.C., and after graduating from college, he served in the Army during World War II. He received the Bronze Star.
In 2009, he received the Congressional Gold Medal, the highest award Congress gives to civilians, according to CBS News.
Brooke was known as a Senate liberal, in part because he was the first Republican senator to urge President Richard Nixon to resign.
He defended school busing as a way to achieve racial integration, helped push the Equal Rights Amendment and supported the federal housing act, which limits the amount of income a family must pay for rent in public housing to 25 percent.
Brooke divorced his wife of 31 years, Remigia, during his second term, which caused an investigation into his personal finances by the Senate Ethics Committee and a probe by the state welfare department. It cost him the 1978 election. In 2000, Brooke said it was just a divorce case and that he was not charged with a crime or even nearly charged with a crime.
Brooke is survived by his second wife, Anne Fleming Brooke, four grandchildren and his children: Edward Brooke IV (from his second marriage), Remi Goldstone and Edwina Petit (daughter from his first marriage) and his step-daughter Melanie Laflamme.
