Barbara Jordan, congresswoman, lawyer, educator and trailblazer
Barbara Charline Jordan (1936-1996) was a member of the U.S. House of Representatives, a lawyer, educator, and a trailblazer for African-American women in Southern politics. She was the first African-American woman elected to the Texas Senate, the first to give a keynote speech to the Democratic National Convention, and the first Southern African-American woman elected to the House of Representatives.
She was born in Houston to Benjamin Jordan, a Baptist preacher, and Arlyne Patten, a teacher. Denied entrance to the University of Texas at Austin because she was African-American, Jordan majored in political science and history at Texas Southern University, a historically black college. During her undergraduate years, she became a champion debater against opponents from Ivy League colleges, and, in 1956, she graduated magna cum laude. Three years later, she graduated from the Boston University School of Law. After teaching at the Tuskegee Institute for a year after law school, Jordan started a private law practice in 1960.
In 1962 and 1964, she made unsuccessful runs for the Texas House of Representatives. In 1966, she won a campaign for the Texas Senate and became the first African-American state senator since 1883. She served in the Texas Senate until 1972, and on June 10, 1972, served as acting governor of Texas for just one day, making her the only African-American woman to ever serve as governor or lieutenant governor of a state. Later that year, Jordan was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. She was appointed to the House Judiciary Committee, and, in 1974, gave the opening statement during the impeachment inquiry of President Richard M. Nixon, the speech for which she is best remembered.
In 1976, she gave the keynote address to the Democratic National Convention. Three years later, Jordan retired from politics and began teaching ethics at the University of Texas at Austin, the very college that denied her admission as an undergraduate. In 1992, Jordan once again spoke before the Democratic National Convention. As president, Bill Clinton expressed interest in nominating Jordan to the U.S. Supreme Court, but her declining health, which included multiple sclerosis and leukemia, made this impossible.
During her lifetime, Jordan received many honors and awards, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Clinton, the Spingarn Medal from the NAACP, election to the Texas and National Women’s Halls of Fame, and more than 20 honorary degrees from America’s leading universities. In 1996, she died from complications of pneumonia.