Brooke, Edward William (1919-...), a Massachusetts Republican, served in the United States Senate from 1967 to 1979. He became the first African American elected to the Senate since the Reconstruction period after the Civil War. Brooke was also the first African American ever elected to the Senate by popular vote. He defeated Endicott Peabody, a white Democrat and former governor of Massachusetts. The state had a heavily Democratic and 98 percent white population.