Barbara Jordan

For the tennis player, see Barbara Jordan (tennis). For the poet, see Barbara Jordan (poet).

Barbara Jordan
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Texas's 18th district
In office January 3, 1973 – January 3, 1979
Preceded by	Bob Price
Succeeded by	Mickey Leland
Member of the Texas Senate from the 11th district
In office January 10, 1967 – January 3, 1973
Preceded by	William T. "Bill" Moore
Succeeded by	Chet Brooks
Personal details
Born	Barbara Charline Jordan (1936-02-21)February 21, 1936 Houston, Texas, U.S.
Died	Austin, Texas, U.S.
Resting place	Texas State Cemetery
Political party	Democratic
Alma mater	Texas Southern University Boston University
Profession	Attorney
Religion	Baptist

Barbara Charline Jordan (February 21, 1936 – January 17, 1996) was an American politician and a leader of the Civil Rights movement. A Democrat, she was the first African American elected to the Texas Senate after Reconstruction, the first southern black female elected to the United States House of Representatives, and the first African-American woman to deliver a keynote address at a Democratic National Convention. She received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, among numerous other honors. She was a member of the Peabody Awards Board of Jurors from 1978 to 1980. On her death, she became the first African-American woman to be buried in the Texas State Cemetery.

Early life

Barbara Charline Jordan was born in houston, Texas's Fifth Ward. Her parents were Benjamin Jordan, a Baptist minister; and Arlyne Patten Jordan, a "domestic worker". Jordan had two siblings, Rosemary Jordan McGowan and Bennie Jordan Creswell (d. 2000). Jordan attended Roberson Elementary School. She graduated from Phillis Wheatley High School in 1952 as an honor student.

Jordan credited a speech she heard in her high school years by Edith S. Sampson with inspiring her to become a lawyer. Because of segregation, she did not attend The University of Texas at Austin and instead chose Texas Southern University, majoring in political science and history. Barbara was a national champion debater, defeating opponents from Yale and Brown and tying Harvard University. She graduated magna cum laude in 1956. At Texas Southern University, she pledged Delta Sigma Theta sorority. She attended Boston University School of Law, graduating in 1959.

Career

Jordan taught political science at Tuskegee Institute in Alabama for a year. In 1960, she returned to Houston, passed the bar and started a private law practice.

Jordan campaigned unsuccessfully in 1962 and 1964 for the Texas House of Representatives. She won a seat in the Texas Senate in 1966, becoming the first African American state senator since 1883 and the first black woman to serve in that body. Re-elected to a full term in the Texas Senate in 1968, she served until 1972. She was the first African-American female to serve as president pro tem of the state senate and served one day, June 10, 1972, as acting governor of Texas; albeit for one day, to date Jordan is the only African American woman to serve as governor of a state (excluding lieutenant governors). During her time in the Texas Legislature, Jordan sponsored or cosponsored some 70 bills.

In 1972, she was elected to Congress, the first woman to represent Texas in the House in her own right. She received extensive support from former President Lyndon B. Johnson, who helped her secure a position on the House Judiciary Committee. In 1974, she made an influential televised speech before the House Judiciary Committee supporting the process of impeachment of Richard Nixon, Johnson's successor as President. In 1975, she was appointed by Carl Albert, then Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, to the Democratic Steering and Policy Committee.

In 1976, Jordan, mentioned as a possible running mate to Jimmy Carter of Georgia, became instead the first African-American woman to deliver a keynote address at the Democratic National Convention. Despite not being a candidate, Jordan received one delegate vote (0.03%) for President at the Convention.

Jordan retired from politics in 1979 and became an adjunct professor teaching ethics at the University of Texas at Austin Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs. She again was a keynote speaker at the Democratic National Convention in 1992.

Jordan and President Carter, ca. 1977. Photo by Dev O'Neill.

In 1994 and until her death in 1996, Jordan chaired the U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform, which advocated increased restriction of immigration, called for all U.S. residents to carry a national identity card and increased penalties on employers that violated U.S. immigration regulations. Then-President Clinton endorsed the Jordan Commission's proposals. While she was Chair of the U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform she argued that "it is both a right and a responsibility of a democratic society to manage immigration so that it serves the national interest." Opponents of modern U.S. immigration policy have cited her willingness to penalize employers who violate U.S. immigration regulations, tighten border security, oppose amnesty or any other pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants, and broaden the grounds for the deportation of legal immigrants.

Legislation

Jordan supported the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977, legislation that required banks to lend and make services available to underserved poor and minority communities. She supported the renewal of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and expansion of that act to cover language minorities; this extended protection to Hispanics in Texas and was opposed by Texas Governor Dolph Briscoe and Secretary of State Mark White. She also authored an act that ended federal authorization of price fixing by manufacturers. During Jordan's tenure as a Congresswoman she sponsored or cosponsored over 300 bills or resolutions, several of which are still in effect today as law.

Personal life

Jordan's partner of approximately thirty years was Nancy Earl, an educational psychologist, whom she met on a camping trip in the late 1960s. Earl acted as an occasional speech writer for Jordan, and later as a caregiver when Jordan began to suffer from multiple sclerosis in 1973. In the KUT radio documentary Rediscovering Barbara Jordan, President Bill Clinton stated that he wanted to nominate Jordan for the United States Supreme Court, but by the time he could do so, Jordan's health problems prevented him from nominating her. Jordan later also suffered from leukemia.

In 1988, Jordan nearly drowned in her backyard swimming pool while performing physical therapy, but she was saved by Earl who found her floating in the pool and revived her.

Jordan died at the age of 59 due to complications from pneumonia on January 17, 1996, in Austin.

Recognition and legacy

• 1984: Inducted into the Texas Women's Hall of Fame.

• 1990: Inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame

• 1992: The Spingarn Medal from the NAACP.

• 1993: The Elizabeth Blackwell Award from Hobart and William Smith Colleges.

• 1994: The Presidential Medal of Freedom.

• 1995: The second ever female awardee of the United States Military Academy's Sylvanus Thayer Award.

Her 1974 statement on the articles of impeachment (regarding President Richard Nixon) was listed as #13 in American Rhetoric's Top 100 Speeches of the 20th Century (listed by rank).

Her 1976 DNC keynote address was listed as #5 in American Rhetoric's Top 100 Speeches of the 20th Century (listed by rank).

Namesakes in Texas

The main terminal at Austin-Bergstrom International Airport is named after Jordan, as well as a boulevard in central Austin. Several schools bear Jordan's name, including an elementary school in Odessa, Texas, and Austin, Texas, Barbara Jordan Early College Prep School, a middle school in Cibolo, Texas, and Barbara Jordan High School in Houston. The Kaiser Family Foundation currently operates the Barbara Jordan Health Policy Scholars, a fellowship designed for people of color who are college juniors, seniors, and recent graduates as a summer experience working in a congressional office.

Other honors

In 2000, the Jordan/Rustin Coalition (JRC) was created in Jordan's honor. The organization mobilized gay and lesbian African Americans to aid in the passage of marriage equality in the state of California. Along with Bayard Rustin, a civil rights leader and close confidante of Martin Luther King, Jr., Barbara Jordan is remembered for her advocacy of progressive politics. According to its website, "the mission [of the JRC] is to empower Black same-gender loving, lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender individuals and families in Greater Los Angeles, to promote equal marriage rights and to advocate for fair treatment of everyone without regard to race, sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression."

On March 27, 2000, a play based on Jordan's life premiered at the Victory Garden Theater in Chicago, Illinois. Titled, "Voice of Good Hope", Kristine Thatcher's biographical evocation of Jordan's life played in theaters from San Francisco to New York.

On April 24, 2009, a Barbara Jordan statue was unveiled at the University of Texas at Austin, where Jordan taught at the time of her death. The Barbara Jordan statue campaign was paid for by a student fee increase approved by the University of Texas Board of Regents. The effort was originally spearheaded by the 2002–2003 Tappee class of the Texas Orange Jackets, the "oldest women's organization at the University" (of Texas at Austin).

In 2011, actor/playwright Jade Esteban Estrada portrayed Jordan in the solo musical comedy ICONS: The Lesbian and Gay History of the World, Vol. 5 which includes the song "Nancy's Eyes" sung by the character of Jordan with music and lyrics by Estrada.

In 2011, the Barbara Jordan Forever Stamp was issued. It is the 34th stamp in the Black Heritage series of U.S. stamps.

In 2012, Jordan was inducted into the Legacy Walk, an outdoor public display which celebrates LGBT history and people.

The Barbara Jordan Media Awards are given annually to media professionals and students who "have produced material for the public which accurately and positively reports on individuals with disabilities, using People First language and respectful depictions."

There is also the Barbara Jordan Public-Private Leadership Award.

Gallery

• 

  Barbara Jordan Memorial at UT Austin

• 

  Barbara Jordan standing at a podium in doctoral regalia

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  Congresswoman Barbara Jordan, April 7, 1976

See also

• History of the African-Americans in Houston

External links

• Barbara Jordan at the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress
• Jordan's Statement on the Articles of Impeachment During the Nixon Impeachment Hearings in Text and Audio from AmericanRhetoric.com
• Jordan's 1976 Democratic National Convention Keynote Address in Text and Audio from AmericanRhetoric.com
• Jordan's 1992 Democratic National Convention Address in Text and Audio from AmericanRhetoric.com
• Barbara Jordan, Governor of Texas for a day, program of ceremonies, June 10, 1972, hosted by the Portal to Texas History
• Interview with Max Sherman, editor of Barbara Jordan – Speaking the Truth with Eloquent Thunder on kaisernetwork.org
• Oral History Interviews with Barbara Jordan, from the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library
• The Texas Experience - Barbara Jordan Presents Lyndon Baines Johnson , from the Texas Archive of the Moving Image
• Special Collections, Texas Southern University

Texas Senate
Preceded by William T. "Bill" Moore	Texas State Senator from District 11 (Houston) 1967–1973	Succeeded by Chet Brooks
United States House of Representatives
Preceded by Bob Price (redistricting)	Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Texas's 18th congressional district 1973–1979	Succeeded by Mickey Leland
Party political offices
Preceded by Reubin Askew	Keynote Speaker of the Democratic National Convention Along with John Glenn 1976	Succeeded by Mo Udall
Preceded by Ann Richards	Keynote Speaker of the Democratic National Convention 1992	Succeeded by Evan Bayh