By Doug Miller

Former Massachusetts legislator Edward Brooke III, a Republican and the first African American elected by popular vote to the U.S. Senate, was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal on October 28, becoming only the 150th American citizen to receive the award since George Washington.

Brooke, 90, was presented with the award during a ceremony at the U.S. Capitol attended by President Barack Obama and an audience of well-wishing senators and members of the House of Representatives. The late Sen. Edward Kennedy, a Democrat, nominated Brooke for the medal—Congress’ highest honor—two years ago, personally campaigning for the 67 votes required to bestow the citation. Kennedy, also from Massachusetts, died earlier this year of brain cancer.

Former Senator Brooke Shares a moment with President Obama and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, of Nevada.

In his remarks, Obama invoked the bipartisanship demonstrated by Kennedy in seeking the medal for Brooke, saying a better Congressional tribute to Brooke might be “to embrace that spirit—to compete aggressively at the polls, but then work selflessly together to serve the nation we love.”

Brooke picked up on the theme, telling current legislators, “We’ve got to get together. It’s time for politics to be put aside on the back burner. We’ve got hungry people to feed. Homeless and ill-housed people to shelter, and young people to be educated. We can’t keep fighting wars.”

Wars, in fact, played pivotal roles in Brooke’s personal and professional history. He was born in Washington, D.C., in 1919, and after graduating from Howard University at 16 with a B.A. in sociology, he enrolled in the Army and was sent overseas, where he became part of World War II’s all-black 366th Combat Infantry Regiment.

Following the war he graduated from Boston University Law School, where he served as editor of the Law Review. In 1960, he was appointed chairman of the Boston Finance Commission, where he exposed corruption in several municipal departments and leveraged that reputation to win the office of Massachusetts Attorney General, becoming the first black man elected to that post. Six years later he won election to the U.S. Senate, where, during his first term, he spent a great deal of time wrangling with the issue of the Vietnam War. In 1967, then-President Lyndon B. Johnson appointed Brooke to the National Commission on Civil Disorders, recommendations from which ultimately found their way into the 1968 Civil Rights Act.

Later, after supporting Richard Nixon for the presidency, Brooke became the first senator to call for Nixon’s resignation in the wake of the 1970s Watergate scandal. Over the years, Brooke, who now lives in Miami, has received dozens of honorary degrees and awards, including the NAACP’s Spingarn Medal. In 2007 he published a memoir, Bridging the Divide: My Life.

Obama weaved the message behind that title into his praise for the retired nonagenarian. “He ran for office,” the president observed, “to bring people together who had never been together before.”

Doug Miller is a writer living in Westchester County, New York.