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Barbara Jordan

:: SHIRELY CHISHOLM :: ALTHEA GIBSON :: BARBARA JORDAN :: CORETTA SCOTT KING :: GROUND-BREAKING BLACK WOMEN :: IN THE MILITARY :: RESOURCES :: HER STORY ::

In a day when we yearn for true leaders whom we can trust, who perform the duties of their office with compassion and zeal, whose integrity remains in tact inspite of their political success, we'd like to feature those rare people who have come along over the years who are true leaders. We're honored to present information about someone who richly deserves this description, Barbara Jordan, the first black representative to Congress from Texas.

Born in Houston Texas on February 21, 1936, Barbara Charline Jordan was educated in the public schools of Houston and graduated from Phillis Wheatley High School in 1952, received a B.A. in political science and history from Texas Southern University in 1956, attended law school at Boston University and was admitted to the Massachusetts and Texas bars in 1959. In 1972 Jordan defeated Republican Paul Merritt to represent Texas' Eighteenth District in the House of Representatives.

In 1976, Barbara Jordan delivered a keynote address at the Democratic National Convention. Jordan addressed the Democratic National Convention again in 1992 in New York at which she nominated President Bill Clinton.. Ms. Jordan's health declined due to the affects of battling multiple sclerosis. In 1979, she retired from politics after three terms in Congress, She accepted a position on the faculty at the University of Texas at Austin. In 1994 she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom. She continued to teach and serve in public office regardless of the decline of her health. She taught courses on intergovernmental relations, political values, and ethics. She published her autobiography, Barbara Jordan: A Self Portrait, in 1979. She served as ethics advisor to Governor Ann Richards in the early 1990s.

Barbara Jordan died of pneumonia on January 17, 1996. She was eulogized by President Clinton and former Texas Governor Anne Richards, both of whom extended specific condolences to her life-companion, Nancy Earl.

Both as a state senator and as a U.S. Congressman, Jordan sponsored bills that championed the cause of poor, Black, and disadvantaged people. One of the most important bills as senator was the Workman's Compensation Act, which increased the maximum benefits paid to injured workers. As a congresswoman, she sponsored legislation to broaden the Voting Rights Act of 1965 to cover Mexican Americans in Texas and other southwestern states and to extend its authority to those states where minorities had been denied the right to vote or had had their rights restricted by unfair registration practices, such as literacy tests. She gained national prominence for the position she took and the statement she made at the 1974 impeachment hearing of President Richard Nixon. In casting a "yes" vote, Jordan stated:

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Molly Ivins, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, during an interview by Charlayne Hunter-Gault, Lehrer News Hour, PBS, called Barbara Jordan, "a woman of magisterial dignity". Ms. Ivins went on to say, " ... and she wore that dignity like armor because she needed to. When she first came to the Texas Senate, one Senator used to call her "that old nigamammy washer woman," and there were others who treated her with that sort of courtly conversation that such gentlemen reserve for the little lady. Jordan overcame all of that by sheer strength of personality, by ability, by her force of intelligence, and, of course, her superb voice, the rhetoric. We always said that if Hollywood ever needed somebody to play the role of God Almighty, they ought to get Barbara Jordan."

Throughout her life, Jordan continued to reach for goals that were previously unattainable. Her compassionate spirit, dignity and integrity will be long remembered.

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Barbara Jordan's "Firsts"

• First black to hold a major county administrative job when in 1965, Harris County Judge Bill Elliott named Jordan his administrative assistant for welfare issues
• First female African-American to be elected to the Texas Senate in 1966
• First African-American elected to preside over a legislative body anywhere in the country in 1972 when she was elected president pro-tempore of the Texas Senate
• First African-American woman to represent Texas in Congress and
• First African-American woman to represent a previously Confederate state in Congress in 1972
• First African-American Woman to deliver a keynote address at a political convention in 1976
• First African-American woman to be buried at the Texas State Cemetery (1996), an honor reserved for Texas heroes

BIBLIOGRAPHY:
http://www.elf.net/bjordan/boxer.html
http://www.elf.net/bjordan/jackson-lee.html
http://www.rice.edu/armadillo/Texas/chronology.html
http://ne.essortment.com/barbarajordanb_ruoj.htm
http://www.monroe.k12.fl.us/kls/BlackHistoryMonth/Barbarajordon/barbaracharlinejordon.htm
http://www.house.gov/jacksonlee/AllAboutHouston/barbara_charline_jordan.htm
http://www.beejae.com/bjordan.htm
http://www.heroism.org/class/1970/jordan.html
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/remember/jordan_1-17.html

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