Barbara Jordan

Politician

• Born: February 21, 1936
• Birthplace: Houston, Texas
• Died: January 17, 1996
• Place of death: Austin, Texas

Politician and scholar

Jordan broke race and gender barriers by winning elected office in the Texas state senate and the U.S. House of Representatives. Her compelling speeches earned her national acclaim and a place in oratorical traditions of African American and U.S. political history.

Areas of achievement: Education; Government and politics; Law; Women’s rights

Early Life

Barbara Charline Jordan was born to Arlyne and Benjamin Jordan on February 21, 1936, in Houston, Texas. She had three older sisters. Both parents were active in the Baptist church, with Benjamin serving as a minister and Arlyne known for impassioned gospel rhetoric. Benjamin also worked nights in a warehouse to support Jordan’s college education. Her grandfather John, a self-reliant man who loved learning and was once framed for murder by Houston law-enforcement authorities, also shaped Jordan’s character.

John’s life provided an example of a racially biased legal system that Jordan resolved to change. She grew up amid segregation and found that her stellar record as a student meant little in the Jim Crow South. Jordan earned debating awards at Houston’s Phillis Wheatley High School and graduated magna cum laude from Texas Southern University in 1956. Both institutions were segregated, however, and Jordan welcomed her chance to earn a law degree at Boston University, from which she graduated in 1959. Next, she obtained licenses to practice law in Massachusetts, Texas, and the District of Columbia and taught briefly at Alabama’s Tuskegee University.

Life’s Work

Jordan returned to Houston to work as a private attorney in the early 1960’s, using a room in her parents’ house as her first legal office. The African American Civil Rights movement and John F. Kennedy’s 1960 presidential run motivated Jordan to become politically active. She saw Democratic Party membership as a path to ending racial discrimination and fostering equal opportunity. After volunteer work for the Kennedy campaign, Jordan focused on the Texas state senate. Her 1962 and 1964 election bids failed, but in 1966, reformed voting laws and Jordan’s appeal to a coalition of African American, Latino, and working-class white voters carried her to victory. No woman had ever won a Texas senate seat; no black candidate had won in more than eighty years.

The intelligence, hard work, and communication skills that brought Jordan academic and professional success also drove her political career. During six years in the Texas state senate (1966-1972), Jordan was a flexible, bipartisan legislator who sponsored laws that helped blue-collar and middle-class constituents. Near the end of her senate term, Jordan held the post of president pro tempore and received ceremonial recognition as “Governor for a Day.”

While thriving in the tough Texas political culture, Jordan also attracted the attention of the national Democratic Party and prepared for a role in Washington, D.C. Lyndon B. Johnson, a mentor who had reached out to Jordan during his presidency, endorsed her 1972 candidacy for the U.S. House of Representatives. She garnered a stunning 80 percent of the vote to become the first southern African American woman in Congress. While representing the Eighteenth Texas District, which included her hometown of Houston, Jordan surpassed her previous achievements. Many laws she backed led to economic and voting reforms that benefited historically disadvantaged groups. Women’s issues also were central to Jordan’s agenda. She championed the Equal Rights Amendment and supported abortion rights. However, Jordan refused to be cast as a standard-bearer for any group, cause, or ideology.

Impressive as Jordan’s legislative skills were, she was best known for her oratory. When Jordan articulately condemned President Richard M. Nixon’s abuses of power in 1974, the accolades she received catapulted her into the Democratic Party’s front ranks and national prominence. Jordan was chosen to deliver the keynote address, a first for an African American, at the 1976 Democratic National Convention that nominated Jimmy Carter as the party’s presidential candidate. Her performance fueled speculation that Carter would choose Jordan for his vice presidential running mate or as a cabinet appointee. Jordan was said to be interested in the position of attorney general. However, Carter did not choose Jordan for a cabinet post after his narrow election win and many observers turned their attention to Jordan’s future and a possible presidential run.

The speculation ended abruptly in 1978. Jordan stunned the political world by retiring from Congress. Impatient with the sluggish routine of legislative work and ill with multiple sclerosis (which she contracted in 1973), Jordan took an academic post at the University of Texas. Although she kept a lower public profile, Jordan continued recording impressive achievements and winning honors in her remaining years. She was popular among students, worked as an adviser to Texas governor Ann Richards in 1991, and chaired President Bill Clinton’s Commission on Immigration Reform in 1994. Although poor health affected her legendary speaking ability, she returned to the public eye to oppose the Supreme Court nomination of Robert Bork in 1987, deliver her second Democratic National Convention keynote address in 1992, and denounce anti-immigrant legislation in 1995. Jordan received the 1994 Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian award in the United States, from Clinton. Two years later, Clinton was one of many dignitaries and thousands of citizens who gathered in Houston for a memorial service for Jordan, who died from complications of leukemia on January 17, 1996.

Significance

Jordan was part of a group of pioneering black political leaders who emerged during and after the Civil Rights movement to transform U.S. politics. Her contemporaries included Shirley Chisholm, Harold Washington, John L. Lewis, Andrew Young, and Jesse Jackson. Former Illinois senator Carol E. Moseley Braun and President Barack Obama are two major inheritors of Jordan’s legacy. In thirty years of public service, she earned a reputation for ethics, integrity, and excellence that few could match. The influence and impact of her relatively brief term in national office were profound.

Bibliography

Holmes, Barbara Ann. A Private Woman in Public Spaces: Barbara Jordan’s Speeches on Ethics, Public Religion, and Law. Harrisburg, Pa.: Trinity Press, 2000. A scholarly analysis of Jordan’s oratory that places her in the context of African American rhetorical traditions.

Jordan, Barbara. Speaking the Truth with Eloquent Thunder. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2007. The book is a collection of Jordan’s major public speeches, covering 1974 through 1996. A DVD with footage of the original speeches, plus tributes to Jordan, is included.

Jordan, Barbara, and Shelby Hearon. Barbara Jordan: A Self-Portrait. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1979. An autobiography for general audiences, published soon after Jordan’s retirement from politics.