- He was the first person of African American heritage to be elected to the position of state Attorney General of any state when he was elected in 1962 to be Attorney General of Massachusetts, and served in that position for four years before being elected from Massachusetts to the United States Senate.
- Congress awarded Brooke the Congressional Gold Medal in 2009, and Brooke was presented with the award two days after his 90th birthday, on October 28, 2009, by President Barack Obama.
- President George W. Bush awarded Brooke the Presidential Medal of Freedom on June 23, 2004.
- He was the first person of African American heritage to be popularly elected to the United States Senate when he was elected from Massachusetts in 1966. While there were other African Americans elected to the US Senate during the post Civil War Reconstruction period, they were all elected by their state legislatures, before the enactment of the 17th amendment to the United States Constitution, which provided for direct election of U.S. Senators by the citizen electorate, rather than the original constitutional provision of election of each state's U.S. Senators by each state's legislature.
- Brooke was the last U.S. Senator elected from Massachusetts as a Republican until Scott Brown was elected in 2010.
- Former senator of Massachusetts, he was the first African-American elected to the United States Senate by popular vote. He is also the only black senator ever to have been returned to office. He was before the first African-American to be elected attorney general of any state.
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