Barbara Jordan
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Throughout her lifetime Barbara Jordan (1936-1996), politician and educator, broke down the barriers of race and gender in a distinguished list of American "firsts." She was the first African-American since Reconstruction to be elected to the Texas Senate, the first female African-American from the South to be elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, and the first woman--and African-American--to deliver a keynote address to the Democratic national convention.
Jordan mesmerized the nation with her eloquent oratory, her skillful interpretation of U.S. history and constitutional law, and her rigorous devotion to ethical standards in politics and society. After retiring from political life she spent her final 17 years teaching in the LBJ School of Public Affairs at The University of Texas at Austin.
Barbara Charline Jordan was born in Houston, Texas, on February 21, 1936, the youngest of three daughters of Benjamin and Arlyne (Patten) Jordan. Jordan's father was a warehouse clerk and Baptist minister. She grew up in Houston's Fifth Ward and attended public schools at Atherton Elementary and the all-black Phillis Wheatley High School. While at Wheatley she was a member of the honor society and excelled at debating. She graduated in 1952 in the top five percent of her class. Barbara Jordan attended Texas Southern University (Houston), where she pledged the Delta Sigma Theta sorority and became a national champion debater, defeating opponents from such schools as Yale and Brown. She graduated magna cum laude from Texas Southern in 1956 and entered law school at Boston University, where she received a law degree in 1959. She passed bar exams in Massachusetts and Texas the same year. After teaching at Tuskegee Institute for a year, Jordan returned to Houston in 1960. She opened a law practice and worked from her parents' home for three years, until she secured enough finances to open an office. She became involved in politics by registering black voters for the 1960 presidential campaign, and twice ran unsuccessfully for the state senate in the early 1960s. In 1966 redistricting and increased registration of black voters won her a seat in the Texas Senate, where she was the first black state senator since 1883. Her career was endorsed and facilitated by Lyndon Baines Johnson, and in turn she advised him on civil rights issues. Eschewing a confrontational approach, Jordan quickly developed a reputation as a master of detail and an effective pragmatist, and she gained the respect of her 30 white male colleagues. She was the first freshman senator ever named to the Texas Legislative Council. While in the legislature she worked for minimum-wage laws and voter registration and chaired the Labor and Management Relations Committee. As President Pro Tempore of the Texas Senate in 1972, she served as "Governor for a Day," earning the distinction of being the first black woman to act as chief executive of any state in the nation. 
In 1972 Jordan successfully ran for the United States House of Representatives from the 18th Texas District. She was the first black woman from a Southern state to serve in Congress, and, with Andrew Young, was the first of two African-Americans to be elected to Congress from the South in the twentieth century. With her precise diction and booming voice, Jordan was an extremely effective public speaker. Both as a state senator and as a U.S. Congresswoman, she sponsored bills that championed the poor, the disadvantaged, and people of color. 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 the law's 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.
Barbara Jordan gained national prominence for her role in the 1974 Watergate hearings as a member of the House Judiciary Committee when she delivered what many considered to be the best speech of the hearings. In that speech she asserted, "My faith in the Constitution is whole, it is complete, it is total. I am not going to sit here and be an idle spectator to the diminution, the subversion, the destruction of the Constitution." Impressed with her eloquence and rising stature in the party, the Democrats chose her to deliver the keynote address at the 1976 Democratic national convention. She was the first woman and the first African-American to do so. Her speech, which addressed the themes of unity, equality, accountability, and American ideals, was considered by many to be the highlight of the convention and helped to rally support for Jimmy Carter's presidential campaign. 
In 1979, after three terms in Congress, Jordan retired from politics to accept the Lyndon B. Johnson Centennial Chair in National Policy at the LBJ School of Public Affairs, The University of Texas at Austin. She taught courses on intergovernmental relations, political values, and ethics. In addition to teaching, she participated in a wide range of national and international activities, including membership on a United Nations panel on transnational corporations in South Africa and Namibia, which led to her receiving the first Nelson Mandela Award for Health and Human Rights in 1993. She chaired the U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform in 1994 and was a founder and member of the board of directors of People for the American Way. From 1991 to 1994 she served as ethics adviser to Texas Governor Ann Richards. Over the last two decades of her life, Jordan received numerous awards, including the Harvey Penick Award for Excellence in the Game of Life (1995), the Sylvanus Thayer Award from West Point (1995), the Presidential Medal of Freedom (1994), the Sandra Day O'Connor Medal of Honor (1994), the Joseph Prize for Human Rights (1993), the Eleanor Roosevelt Val-Kill Medal (1992), the Bess Wallace Truman Award (1992), the Tom C. Clark Equal Justice Under Law Award (1991), and the Charles Evans Hughes Gold Medal of the National Conference of Christians and Jews (1987). Other honors included induction into the African-American Hall of Fame (1993), the National Women's Hall of Fame (1990), and Texas Women's Hall of Fame (1984); selection as "One of the Most Influential Women of the 20th Century" by the National Women's Hall of Fame (1993); recognition by the International Platform Association as the "Best Living Orator" (1984); and selection by the World Almanac as "One of the 25 Most Influential Women in America" for 12 consecutive years. Jordan received 31 honorary doctorate degrees from institutions throughout the U.S., including from Harvard, Princeton, Notre Dame, Brandeis, William and Mary, and Tuskegee Institute. She published her autobiography, Barbara Jordan: A Self Portrait, in 1979. In 1992 she once again delivered the keynote address at the Democratic national convention. Barbara Jordan suffered from a number of ailments in her later years, including a form of multiple sclerosis, and was confined to a wheelchair. She succumbed to pneumonia and leukemia in Austin on January 17, 1996, and is buried in the State Cemetery in Austin. On January 28, 1996, Jordan's friend Bill Moyers delivered the eulogy at a memorial service held on the campus of UT Austin. Her papers are housed at the Barbara Jordan Archives at Texas Southern University. By Mark Odintz and Marilyn Duncan
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