Out Spotlight

Today's Out Spotlight was the first African-American woman elected to Congress from a southern state. A leader of the Civil Rights movement, they were known as an outstanding orator and Constitutional scholar. They were also the first African American elected to the Texas Senate after Reconstruction and the first southern black female elected to the United States House of Representatives. Today's Out Spotlight is Barbara Jordan.

Barbara Charline Jordan was born February 21, 1936 in Houston, Texas' Fifth Ward. The daughter of a Baptist minister; and a "domestic worker" Jordan attended Roberson Elementary School and Phyllis Wheatley High School, where in 1952 she graduated as an honor student.

Due to segregation, she did not attend The University of Texas at Austin and instead chose Texas Southern University, majoring in political science and history. A national champion debater, she defeated opponents from such schools as Yale and Brown and tied in a debate with Harvard University's team. Jordan graduated magna cum laude in 1956. She went on to attend Boston University School of Law, graduating with a J.D. in 1959.

Jordan went on to teach political science at Tuskegee Institute in Alabama for a year. The next year she returned to Houston, TX, passing the bar and starting a private law practice.

Jordan campaigned unsuccessfully in 1962 and 1964 for the Texas House of Representatives. Her persistence paid won her 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 the Texas State Senate. Re-elected to a full term 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.

In 1972, she was elected to Congress, the first woman to represent Texas in the House in her own right (the first woman from Texas, Lera Thomas, had been elected after the death of her husband, Albert Thomas). She received extensive support from former President Lyndon B. Johnson, who helped her secure a position on the House Judiciary Committee.

Jordan came to national prominence during the Watergate Scandal in 1974 when, as a freshman member of the House Judiciary Committee, she made an eloquent speech on the Constitution which was nationally televised in prime time. Her speech set the stage for President Richard Nixon's resignation.

In 1976, she was mentioned as a possible running mate to Jimmy Carter, but became instead the first African-American woman to deliver the keynote address at the Democratic National Convention. Her speech in New York that summer was ranked 5th in "Top 100 American Speeches of the 20th century" list and was considered by some historians to have been among the best convention keynote speeches in modern history.

Despite not being a candidate, Jordan received one delegate vote (0.03%) for President at the convention.

She 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. In 1992 returned to the Democratic National Convention as their keynote speaker.

The New York Times described her oratory as "Churchillian," and one writer suggested that her deep, Olympian sound could galvanize listeners "as though Winston Churchill had been reincarnated as a black woman from Texas." Jordan was named Best Living Orator by a professional speakers' organization. Texas columnist the late Molly Ivins said that Jordan would be the obvious choice in a casting call for the voice of God.

In 1994 and until her death in 1996, she 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 US 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.” Her stance on immigration is cited by opponents of current US immigration policy who cite her willingness to penalize employers who violate US immigration regulations, to tighten border security, and to oppose amnesty or any other pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants and to broaden the grounds for the deportation of legal immigrants.

She also upported 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.

In 1973, Jordan began to suffer from multiple sclerosis. She had difficulty climbing stairs, and she started using a cane and eventually a wheelchair. She kept the state of her health out of the press so well that 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's partner of close to 30 years was Nancy Earl. She met Earl, an educational psychologist who would become an occasional speech writer, on a camping trip in the late 1960s. Jordan never publicly acknowledged her sexual orientation, but in her obituary, the Houston Chronicle mentioned her long relationship with Earl.

In the beginning of her political career, during her initial unsuccessful statewide races, advisers warned her to become more discreet and not bring any female partners on the campaign trail.

Jordan narrowly escaped death by drowning in July 1988 when Earl pulled her from their backyard swimming pool. Her death in 1996 was caused from complications of pneumonia.

In 1994, President Bill Clinton awarded Jordan the nation's highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

She was also elected to both the Texas and National Women's Hall of Fame and awarded the prestigious United States Military Academy's Sylvanus Thayer Award, becoming only the second female awardee.

Upon her death on January 17, 1996, Jordan lay in state at the LBJ Library on the campus of The University of Texas at Austin. She was buried in the Texas State Cemetery in Austin, and was the first black woman interred there. Her papers are housed at the Barbara Jordan Archives at Texas Southern University.

The main terminal at Austin-Bergstrom International Airport is named after her, as are an elementary school in Odessa, Texas, a middle school in Cibolo, Texas; 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.

On March 27, 2000, a play on Jordan's life premiered at the Victory Garden Theater in Chicago, Illinois. Titled, "Voice of Good Hope", biographical story 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.

Many of Jordan's speeches have been collected in Barbara Jordan: Speaking the Truth with Eloquent Thunder."

In her namesake, the Jordan/Rustin Coalition (JRC) was created in California in 2000. This organization seeks to mobilize gay and lesbian African American 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."

At Jordan's funeral in 1996, President Clinton eulogized her: "Whenever she stood to speak, she jolted the nation's attention with her artful and articulate defense of the Constitution, the American Dream, and the common heritage and destiny we share, whether we like it or not. "

"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."