Barbara Jordan - Infinite Women

Born: 21 February 1936, United States
Died: 17 January 1996
Country most active: United States
Also known as: NA

This biography is reprinted in full with permission from the National Women’s History Museum (United States of America). It was written by Kerri Lee Alexander, NWHM Fellow (2018-2020). NWHM biographies are generously supported by Susan D. Whiting. All rights reserved.

While the world watched during the Impeachment hearings of President Richard Nixon, Barbara Jordan boldly took center stage. As a lawyer, a congresswoman, and a scholar, Jordan used her public speaking skills to fight for civil and human rights. In 1972, Jordan became the first African American woman to be elected to Congress from the South since 1898.
Barbara Charline Jordan was born on February 21, 1936 in Houston, Texas. The daughter of Arlyne and Benjamin Jordan, Barbara was the youngest of three children. Her mother was a public speaker and her father was the pastor of Good Hope Missionary Baptist Church. After attending Roberson Elementary School, Jordan attended Phyllis Wheatley High School and graduated in 1952. Upon graduation, she went to Texas Southern University and earned her bachelor’s degree in 1956. She then went to Boston University to get her law degree. Once she passed her law exam called the “bar,” Jordan began practicing law in Houston Texas. For her first job, she worked as an administrative assistant for a county judge. That same year, she began working on the John F. Kennedy presidential campaign.
In 1962, Jordan began her political career and ran for the Texas House of Representatives. Although she lost the race, she ran again in 1964. However, she lost again so in 1966 she decided to run for the Texas Senate instead. This time, Jordan won and became the first African American woman ever elected to that office. Also, she was the first African American state senator in United States since 1883. During her time as senator she worked to establish a minimum wage law, antidiscrimination statements in business contracts, and a Fair Employment Practices Commission. She was elected president of the Texas Senate on March 28, 1972, making her the first black woman in America to oversee a legislative body. During this time, Jordan was also running for Congress. Winning by 81 percent, she became the first African American in the 20th century to be elected to Congress from the South.
While in Washington, D.C. as a congresswoman, Jordan served on various committees. Starting in 1975, she served three terms on the Judiciary Committee. Jordan quickly became a prominent voice on the Judiciary Committee. As the committee began the impeachment process against President Richard M. Nixon, Jordan gave the opening remarks. In her speech, she stated her reasons for supporting President Nixon’s impeachment and her faith in the Constitution. After her powerful speech, many people surrounded her car, and sent her letters and phone calls to congratulate her. President Nixon resigned from office on August 9, 1974. Following this, Jordan continued to advocate for civil rights protections for many Americans. In 1975, she sponsored legislation that expanded the Voting Rights Act of 1965 to include Latinx, Native, and Asian Americans. A year later, she became the first African American and the first woman keynote speaker at the Democratic National Convention.
Jordan continued her political career and began heavily campaigning for Democratic presidential candidate James Earl (Jimmy) Carter. In 1977, Carter won the presidential election against President Gerald Ford. During his term, President Carter interviewed Jordan for the Cabinet position of U.S. Attorney General, but he did not offer her the position. The next year, Jordan decided not to run for re-election to Congress. Instead, Jordan became a professor at the University of Texas in Austin as the Lyndon Johnson Chair in National Policy. She taught in the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University until the early 1990s. In 1992, she delivered the keynote speech at the Democratic National Convention from a wheelchair because she suffered from multiple sclerosis. Two years later, President Bill Clinton selected her to lead the Commission on Immigration Reform. However, Jordan’s health continued to decline. Although she was very quiet about her private life, many historians suggest that her caregiver Nancy Earl, was also her life partner. Earl was an educational psychologist that traveled with Jordan for nearly thirty years. On January 17, 1996, Barbara Jordan died from pneumonia, a complication of leukemia.

The following is republished from the U.S. Congress. This piece falls under under public domain, as copyright does not apply to “any work of the U.S. Government” where “a work prepared by an officer or employee of the U.S. Government as part of that person’s official duties” (See, 17 U.S.C. §§ 101, 105).

From her seat on the House Judiciary Committee, Barbara Jordan of Texas—the first Black woman ever elected to Congress from the South—expertly interpreted the issues of the Watergate impeachment investigation at a time when many Americans despaired about the Constitution and the country. Jordan was one of the first African-American lawmakers elected from the South since 1898, and during her three terms in office, her pragmatic leadership style enabled her to build broad coalitions of support in her diverse district. “I am willing to work through any structure,” she said. “I am not so hard that I cannot bend as long as my basic principles are intact.”

Barbara Charline Jordan was born in Houston, Texas, on February 21, 1936, one of three daughters of Benjamin M. Jordan and Arlyne Patten Jordan. Benjamin Jordan, a graduate of Tuskegee Institute, worked in a local warehouse before becoming pastor of Good Hope Missionary Baptist Church, which his family had long attended. Arlyne Jordan was an accomplished public speaker. Barbara Jordan was educated in the Houston public schools and graduated from Phillis Wheatley High School in 1952. She earned a bachelor’s degree from Texas Southern University in 1956 and a law degree from Boston University in 1959. That same year, she was admitted to the Massachusetts and Texas bars, and she began to practice law in Houston in 1960. To supplement her income, Jordan was employed as an administrative assistant to a county judge. Jordan never married.

In 1960, Jordan, in addition to beginning her legal career, worked on John F. Kennedy’s Democratic presidential campaign. She eventually helped manage a highly organized get-out-the-vote program that served Houston’s 40 African-American precincts. In 1962 and 1964, Jordan ran for the Texas house of representatives but lost both times. In 1966, she ran for the Texas senate when court-enforced redistricting created a constituency that consisted largely of minority voters. Jordan won, defeating a White liberal and becoming the first African-American state senator in Texas since 1883 and the first Black woman elected to the Texas state legislature. Jordan received a cool welcome from the other 30 White and male senators. Undeterred, Jordan quickly established herself as an effective legislator who pushed through bills establishing the state’s first minimum wage law, antidiscrimination clauses in business contracts, and the Texas fair employment practices commission. On March 28, 1972, Jordan was elected president pro tempore of the Texas senate, making her the first Black woman in America to preside over a legislative body. In seconding the nomination, one of Jordan’s male colleagues on the other side of the chamber stood, spread his arms open, and said, “What can I say? Black is beautiful.” One of Jordan’s responsibilities as president pro tempore was to serve as acting governor when the governor and lieutenant governor were out of the state. When Jordan filled that largely ceremonial role on June 10, 1972, she became the first Black chief executive in the nation.

In 1971, Jordan entered the race for the Texas congressional seat encompassing downtown Houston. The district had been redrawn after the 1970 Census and was about 55 percent African American and 15 percent Latino. In the 1972 Democratic primary, Jordan faced Curtis Graves, another Black state legislator, who criticized her for what he said was her close relationship with the White political establishment. Jordan blunted Graves’s charges with her legislative credentials. “I’m not going to Washington and turn things upside down in a day,” she told supporters at a rally. “I’ll only be one of 435. But the 434 will know I’m there.” Jordan took the primary with 80 percent of the vote. In the general election, against Republican Paul Merritt, she won 81 percent of the vote. Along with Andrew Young of Georgia, Jordan became the first African American in the twentieth century elected to Congress from the Deep South. In the next two campaign cycles, Jordan overwhelmed her opposition, capturing 85 percent of the total vote in both general elections.

In both her Texas legislative career and in the U.S. House, Jordan pursued influence and change within existing systems. “I sought the power points,” she once said. “I knew if I were going to get anything done, [the congressional and party leaders] would be the ones to help me get it done.” Immediately upon arriving in Congress, Jordan worked to establish relationships with the rest of the Texas delegation, which wielded outsized influence in the House. During debate, Jordan regularly sat on the center aisle of the chamber’s large, theater-style seating arrangement. She did so to better hear the day’s proceedings, to be seen by the presiding officer when she sought recognition, and to save an open seat for colleagues who wanted to stop and chat. But her decision broke with years of tradition in which members of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) usually sat to the far right of the rostrum of the Democratic side of the chamber. As the Representative for downtown Houston, Jordan also occasionally broke with her party to vote for oil and gas deregulation to appease her district’s petroleum industry. “They support me as the least of the evils,” she noted. “They are not a strong base of support. They know it and I know it.”

In the House, Jordan sought out powerful committee assignments, where, as a Black woman, she could blaze new trails and magnify her influence. She disregarded suggestions that she accept a seat on the Education and Labor Committee and instead used her connection with former President Lyndon B. Johnson of Texas—she had once been his guest at the White House during her time as a state legislator—to intercede on her behalf with Wilbur Daigh Mills of Arkansas, who, as chair of the Ways and Means Committee, also led the Democratic Committee on Committees. With Johnson’s help, Jordan landed a seat on the Judiciary Committee, where she served for her three terms in the House. In the 94th and 95th Congresses (1975–1979), she was also assigned to the Committee on Government Operations.

Jordan prioritized her independence in Congress. Although she belonged to a handful of caucuses, including the CBC, she remained wary of allying too closely with any particular interest group. House women met informally to discuss policy too, but Jordan’s attendance at those meetings was irregular, and she was noncommittal on most issues that were brought before the group. She was especially careful not to attach herself too closely to an agenda she had little control over that might impinge on her ability to navigate and compromise within the institutional power structure. “I am neither a black politician nor a woman politician,” Jordan said in 1975. “Just a politician, a professional politician.”

Jordan entered the House amid a power struggle between the Democratic-controlled Congress and the Republican administration of President Richard M. Nixon over federal spending. The administration had vetoed two spending bills in the first months of 1973 and impounded—or, refused to spend—funds appropriated by Congress. Just a few months into her first term, Jordan joined her first-term colleagues in a House Floor protest calling on congressional leaders to reassert their constitutional authority over spending matters. “As freshman members . . . we expect to endure a certain amount of individual impotence in terms of our ability to influence congressional actions,” she said. “[But] we do not expect powerlessness of Congress as an institution.”

The following year, Jordan took on a national leadership role as a member of the Judiciary Committee. In the summer of 1974, as the committee considered articles of impeachment against President Nixon for crimes associated with the Watergate scandal, Jordan delivered opening remarks that shook the committee room and captivated the large television audience that had tuned in to the proceedings. “My faith in the Constitution is whole, it is complete, it is total,” Jordan said. “I am not going to sit here and be an idle spectator to the diminution, the subversion, the destruction of the Constitution.” After explaining why she supported each of the five articles of impeachment against President Nixon, Jordan concluded by saying that if the Judiciary Committee did not find the evidence compelling enough, “then perhaps the eighteenth-century Constitution should be abandoned to a twentieth-century paper shredder.” Reaction to Jordan’s statement was overwhelming. Jordan recalled that people swarmed around her car after the hearings to congratulate her, and many people sent the Texas Representative letters of praise. Back home in Houston, a new billboard read: “Thank you, Barbara Jordan, for explaining the Constitution to us.”

Watergate also helped shape Jordan’s legislative priorities. In October 1973, shortly after Nixon fired special prosecutor Archibald Cox, who had been appointed to investigate the Watergate scandal, she joined colleagues in cosponsoring legislation that would have appointed a new special prosecutor who could not be arbitrarily removed from office. Jordan also introduced a bill of her own that would have created a permanent system in which grand juries could choose to appoint a special prosecutor to take over a case if the jury determined that the original prosecutor had a conflict of interest.

During her career, Jordan sought legislative remedies to expand the reach of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965. “The momentum of the 1960’s has run out,” Jordan declared. “Congress will be called upon to defend progress already made rather than undertake new initiatives.” In 1973, she amended a reauthorization bill for the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration (LEAA)— an agency tasked with distributing grants to state and local law enforcement agencies—to require it enforce Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibited racial discrimination in programs that receive federal funding. Under the law, the LEAA could withhold funding or bring suit against recipients of its grants if they were found to have engaged in racial or gender discrimination. When policymakers discovered that the LEAA failed to challenge any civil rights violations, Jordan successfully passed legislation to strengthen the LEAA’s antidiscrimination program in 1976. From her seat on the Government Operations Committee, she pursued similar legislation to require the Office of Revenue Sharing to enforce Title VI when distributing funds to state and local governments. In 1977, she cosponsored an ambitious bill with William Donlon “Don” Edwards of California to require all agencies to enforce Title VI, though it did not become law. She also joined seven other members on the Judiciary Committee in opposing Gerald R. Ford’s nomination as Vice President after the resignation of Spiro T. Agnew, citing what they said was his mediocre civil rights record.

In 1975, a decade after the passage of the Voting Rights Act, Jordan supported legislation to extend the act’s provisions for an additional 10 years, noting that state and local officials had continued to implement policies aimed at suppressing voters of color. “The barriers continue,” Jordan said. “And so must the Voting Rights Act—the most effective statute minorities have to guarantee that one day those barriers will come down.” She introduced legislation to extend the act’s voter protections to language minorities, particularly Hispanic Americans. Under her bill, states and local jurisdictions in which more than 5 percent of the population spoke a single language other than English would be subject to Voting Rights Act’s special provisions if officials only printed election materials in English. The bill also required areas covered by the Voting Rights Act to seek approval from federal authorities before implementing changes to their voting procedures. Her legislation was incorporated into the Voting Rights Act’s 1975 reauthorization.

As a legislator, Jordan sought to improve the lives of her working-class constituents. She sponsored bills to extend Social Security benefits to homemakers and provide a tax credit to low-income employed and self-employed people. To combat rising inflation rates, Jordan introduced legislation to prohibit manufacturers from fixing the retail prices of their products, which became law in 1975.

In 1976, Jordan became the first woman and the first African-American keynote speaker at a Democratic National Convention. Appearing after a subdued speech by Ohio Senator John Herschel Glenn Jr., Jordan energized the convention with her soaring oratory. “We are a people in search of a national community,” she told the delegates, “attempting to fulfill our national purpose, to create and sustain a society in which all of us are equal. . . . We cannot improve on the system of government, handed down to us by the founders of the Republic, but we can find new ways to implement that system and to realize our destiny.” Amid celebration of the national bicentennial, and in the aftermath of the Vietnam War and Watergate, Jordan’s message of hope and resilience, like her commanding voice, resonated with Americans. She campaigned widely for Democratic presidential candidate James Earl “Jimmy” Carter, who defeated President Ford in the general election. Though it was widely speculated that Carter was considering Jordan for Attorney General, he offered her the job as ambassador to the United Nations. Jordan did not accept the offer, explaining that she would only accept a position “consistent with my background.”

In 1978, downplaying reports about her poor health, Jordan declined to run for what would have been certain re-election to a fourth term, citing her “internal compass,” which she said was pointing her “away from demands that are all consuming.” She also said she wanted to work more directly on behalf of her fellow Texans. Jordan was appointed the Lyndon Johnson Chair in National Policy at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas in Austin, where she taught until the early 1990s. She continued to lecture widely on national affairs. In 1988 and 1992, she delivered speeches at the Democratic National Convention; she gave her 1992 keynote address amid a lengthy battle with multiple sclerosis. In 1994, President William J. Clinton appointed her to lead the Commission on Immigration Reform, a bipartisan group that delivered its findings in September of that year. Jordan received nearly two dozen honorary degrees and, in 1990, was named to the National Women’s Hall of Fame in Seneca, New York.

Jordan died in Austin, Texas, on January 17, 1996, from pneumonia that was a complication of leukemia. Newspapers across the country published extensive obituaries that celebrated her oratory, her defense of the Constitution, and the role she played in inspiring generations of minority women in politics. “She left Congress after only three terms, a mere six years,” the editors of the New York Times wrote. “No landmark legislation bears her name. Yet few lawmakers in this century have left a more profound and positive impression on the nation than Barbara Jordan.”

Works cited by NWHM
Clines, Francis X. “Barbara Jordan Dies at 59; Her Voice Stirred the Nation.” The New York Times. The New York Times, January 18, 1996. https://www.nytimes.com/1996/01/18/us/barbara-jordan-dies-at-59-her-voice-stirred-the-nation.html.
National Archives Foundation. “Barbara Jordan.” Accessed November 5, 2019. https://www.archivesfoundation.org/amendingamerica/barbara-jordan/.
The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. “About Barbara Jordan.” December 18, 2013. https://www.kff.org/about-barbara-jordan/.
US House of Representatives: History, Art & Archives. “JORDAN, Barbara Charline.” Accessed November 5, 2019. https://history.house.gov/People/Detail/16031.