3100 Cleburne St, Houston, TX 77004, United States
Jordan was a member of the inaugural class at Texas Southern University, a black college hastily created by the Texas legislature to avoid having to integrate the University of Texas.
Gallery of Barbara Jordan
765 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston, MA 02215, United States
Jordan earned her law degree from Boston University School of Law.
Career
Gallery of Barbara Jordan
American Congresswoman Barbara Jordan (1936-1996) speaks at a podium, mid-1970s. (Photo by Bernard Gotfryd)
Gallery of Barbara Jordan
4 Pennsylvania Plaza, New York, NY 10001, United States
Texas Congresswoman Barbara Jordan giving the Keynote Address at the 1976 Democratic National Convention, in Madison Square Garden, New York City (Photo by Owen Franken)
Gallery of Barbara Jordan
4 Pennsylvania Plaza, New York, NY 10001, United States
Former Congresswoman Barbara Jordan addressing Democratic National Convention at Madison Square Garden. (Photo by Terry Ashe/The LIFE Images Collection)
Gallery of Barbara Jordan
1983
Headshot of American politician Barbara Jordan (1936 - 1996) wearing glasses and a striped blazer with an open shirt. (Photo by Nancy R. Schiff/Hulton Archive)
Headshot of American politician Barbara Jordan (1936 - 1996) wearing glasses and a striped blazer with an open shirt. (Photo by Nancy R. Schiff/Hulton Archive)
4 Pennsylvania Plaza, New York, NY 10001, United States
Former Congresswoman Barbara Jordan addressing Democratic National Convention at Madison Square Garden. (Photo by Terry Ashe/The LIFE Images Collection)
4 Pennsylvania Plaza, New York, NY 10001, United States
Texas Congresswoman Barbara Jordan giving the Keynote Address at the 1976 Democratic National Convention, in Madison Square Garden, New York City (Photo by Owen Franken)
3100 Cleburne St, Houston, TX 77004, United States
Jordan was a member of the inaugural class at Texas Southern University, a black college hastily created by the Texas legislature to avoid having to integrate the University of Texas.
(The Texas Congresswoman describes her childhood in Housto...)
The Texas Congresswoman describes her childhood in Houston, her years in segregated schools, her entry into the white world while attending Boston University Law School, and her breakthrough into politics.
Barbara Jordan was an American lawyer, educator, and politician who served as a United States congressional representative from Texas (1973-1979). She was the first African American congresswoman to come from the S.
Background
Barbara Charline Jordan was born on February 21, 1936, in her parents' home in Houston, Texas, United States. Her father, Benjamin Jordan, was a Baptist minister and warehouse clerk. Her mother Arlyne was a maid, housewife, and church teacher.
Education
Jordan attended the segregated Phillis Wheatley High School, where a career day speech by Edith Sampson, a black lawyer, inspired her to become an attorney. Jordan was a member of the inaugural class at Texas Southern University, a black college hastily created by the Texas legislature to avoid having to integrate the University of Texas. There Jordan joined the debate team and helped lead it to national renown. The team famously tied Harvard's debaters when they came to Houston.
Jordan graduated magna cum laude from Texas Southern University in 1956 and was accepted at Boston University's law school. Three years later, Jordan earned her law degree as one of only two African American women in her class. She passed the Massachusetts and Texas bars and returned to Houston to open a law office in the Fifth Ward.
After earning her law degree in 1959, Barbara Jordan returned to Houston, starting a law practice from her parents' home and also getting involved in the 1960 election as a volunteer. Lyndon B. Johnson became her political mentor.
After unsuccessful tries at being elected to the Texas House, in 1966 Barbara Jordan became the first African American since Reconstruction in the Texas Senate, the first black woman in the Texas legislature. A Supreme Court decision and redistricting to enforce "one man, one vote" helped make her election possible. She was re-elected to the Texas Senate in 1968.
In 1972, Barbara Jordan ran for national office, becoming the first black woman elected to Congress from the South, and, with Andrew Young, one of the first two African Americans elected since Reconstruction to the United States Congress from the South. While in Congress, Barbara Jordan came to national attention with her strong presence on the committee holding Watergate hearings, calling for the impeachment of President Nixon on July 25, 1974. She was also a strong supporter of the Equal Rights Amendment, worked for legislation against racial discrimination, and helped establish voting rights for non-English-speaking citizens.
At the 1976 Democratic National Convention, Barbara Jordan gave a powerful and memorable keynote speech, the first African American woman to give a keynote to that body. Many thought she would be named a vice presidential nominee, and later a Supreme Court justice.
In 1977 Barbara Jordan announced she would not run for another term in Congress, and became a professor, teaching government at the University of Texas. She became an active public speaker and advocate, amassing 25 honorary doctorates.
Barbara Jordan was inducted into the Texas Women's Hall of Fame in 1984 and into the National Women's Hall of Fame in 1990.
In 1994, Barbara Jordan served on the United States Commission on Immigration Reform. When Ann Richards was the governor of Texas, Barbara Jordan was her ethics advisor.
(The Texas Congresswoman describes her childhood in Housto...)
1979
Religion
Barbara Jordan was a Christian.
Politics
Barbara Jordan gave many speeches; served on various corporate, nonprofit, and government boards; was an ethics adviser to Texas governor Ann Richards from 1991 to 1995; and chaired President Bill Clinton's Commission on Immigration Reform from 1994 to 1996.
Jordan was an inspiring orator, a consummate politician, and a champion of the political rights of the disenfranchised. Shortly before her death, she summed up her own motivation: "We cannot stand to have, in a democracy, any significant portion of the people who do not have a voice in what happens to them... [We] as a people, black, white, Asian, Hispanic, must keep scratching the surface until we get where we’ve got to be, and that's all-inclusiveness for all people."
Views
Quotations:
"Think what a better world it would be if we all, the whole world, had cookies and milk about three o'clock every afternoon and then lay down on our blankets for a nap."
"If the society today allows wrongs to go unchallenged, the impression is created that those wrongs have the approval of the majority."
"If you're going to play the game properly you'd better know every rule."
"Do not call for black power or green power. Call for brain power."
"There is no obstacle in the path of young people who are poor or members of minority groups that hard work and preparation cannot cure."
"One thing is clear to me: we, as human beings, must be willing to accept people who are different from ourselves."
"We believe in equality for all, and privileges for none. This is a belief that each American regardless of background has equal standing in the public forum, all of us. Because we believe this idea so firmly, we are an inclusive, rather than an exclusive party. Let everybody come."
"What the people want is very simple - they want an America as good as its promise."
Membership
Delta Sigma Theta
Personality
Barbara was the most ambitious of her family. She was not sure what she wanted to do, but she knew she wanted to achieve something great. Her father had taught her that race and poverty had nothing to do with her brainpower or her ability to achieve lofty goals if she had the drive to work for them.
Jordan's sexual orientation has never been determined, but some sources list her as a lesbian.
Physical Characteristics:
Jordan, who had suffered from multiple sclerosis since 1973, was wheelchair-bound by the time she was invited to give her second Democratic convention keynote address in 1992. Until her death, she remained private about her illnesses, which finally included diabetes and cancer.
Connections
Jordan was intensely private during her life and was never public about her sexual orientation or the relationship she had with Nancy Earl. In Barbara Jordan: American Hero, Jordan recalls meeting Earl on a camping trip in the 1960s. Coupling this information with the known timeline of their relationship suggests that Jordan maintained this relationship in private for most, if not all, of her political career.