As President Obama, the nation's first African-American chief executive, prepares to deliver a eulogy for Sen. Edward Kennedy on Saturday, members of an older generation of African-American politicians are remembering Kennedy's loyalty and devotion to them and their cause.
In an interview scheduled for broadcast tonight, Kennedy's former Massachusetts colleague, Ed Brooke, seen here, recalled the late senator's patience and his passion. "He genuinely and sincerely believed in equal justice and equal rights, civil rights, civil liberties, and he never, never faltered from that," Brooke, told host Tavis Smiley. "And he was able to get things done, one, because he believed so deeply and so passionately about the issues and second, because he persevered, he never gave up." A Republican and the first African American ever elected to the U.S. Senate, Brooke served 12 years with Kennedy, from 1967 to 1979.
On Smiley's show last night, Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., a civil rights saint of sorts (Lewis was beaten multiple times during the course of civil rights protests in the 1960s) recalled thinking of the Kennedy brothers as protectors. "There was something about the Kennedy family," Lewis said. "It was this feeling they would be our champion. They would look out for the cause of civil rights and the cause of social justice."
In another interview, superlawyer Vernon Jordan, a confidant of former president Bill Clinton, recounted how Kennedy was the first visitor at his hospital bedside in 1980 after a white supremacist shot Jordan. Jordan said the senator "was incredibly compassionate."
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