Black Sis-tory: U.S. Rep. Barbara Jordan “I never intended to become a run-of-the-mill person.”
“… the American Dream is slipping away from too many. It is slipping away from too many black and brown mothers and their children; from the homeless of every color and sex; from the immigrants living in communities without water and sewer systems ….
“…from the workers on indefinite layoffs while their chief executive officers are making bonuses that are more than the worker will take home in 10 or 20 or 30 years.”
--Representative Barbara Jordan (D-TX) Democratic Keynote Address (1992)
A constituent of Rep. Barbara Charline Jordan (D-TX), who once had heard her on the radio, recalled, “It was like listening to the voice of God.”
An accomplished debater, she won debate contests during high school and in college.YouTube videos of her famous speeches, delivered at the1976 and 1992 Democratic National Conventions (DNC), capture the eloquence and power of her voice as well as her dedication to her constituents.
“I am here simply because all those people in the Eighteenth District of Texas … have elected me as their spokesperson, nothing else, and my only job is to speak for them.”
Jordan was a woman of many firsts: In 1966, she was the first African America elected to the Texas State Senate since 1883, and the first Black woman to serve in that body. She served briefly as acting governor of Texas.
In 1972, she was the first Black woman from a southern state elected to the U.S. House of Representatives.
At the 1976 DNC, Jordan became the first woman and the first African American to deliver a keynote speech. Historians hail her speech as one of the most memorable delivered at a political convention.
“…There is something different about tonight. There is something special about tonight. What is different? What is special? I, Barbara Jordan, am a keynote speaker.
In 1992, Jordan, now living with multiple sclerosis, addressed DNC delegates from a wheelchair; they gave her a rousing ovation.
Her National Women’s History Museum biography noted that “… she served three terms on the Judiciary Committee … As the committee began the impeachment process against President Richard M. Nixon [EN]: for his administration’s cover-up of the Watergate scandal), Jordan gave the opening remarks … supporting President Nixon’s impeachment and her faith in the Constitution.” In the aftermath of her speech, she received numerous congratulatory letters and phone calls.
President Nixon resigned from office on August 9,1974.
Jordan sponsored or co-sponsored more than 300 bills, including the Voting Rights Act; the Consumer Goods Pricing Act; the Antitrust Parens Patriae Act; an amendment of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968; and the National Emergencies Act.
The Early Years
Jordan was born in Houston, TX on February 21,1936, the youngest of three daughters of Benjamin and Arlynne Patten Jordan, a Baptist minister, and her mother, a church teacher and public speaker. At birth, her father is said to have remarked, “Why is she so dark?”
In Barbara Jordan, American Hero, biographer Mary Beth Rogers wrote, “She learned quite early that the degree of blackness for a black child mattered ... when she was in the all-black Phillis Wheatley High School in the early 1950s … her color, her size, her hair texture, and her features would determine and limit her choices ….
“Color-struck" teachers favored light-skinned students, who were given the honors and awards …”
Despite her experiences with colorism, Rogers said Jordan seldom doubted her worth. “The person who taught her to be proud of herself, to be proud of her blackness … was her maternal grandfather, John Ed Patten (aka Patton). Her relationship with this old man … taught her to be free within herself, even within the confines of her segregated, color-constrained world in Houston, Texas.”
What little is known about Patton can be found beneath a small, slightly faded headshot of him at the Texas State Library and Archives Commission website: “Born Texas, ca 1859, Died date, place unknown, Political Life: Representative in 22nd (1891-1892) Legislature from Evergreen (San Jacinto and Polk Counties) Personal Life: Also worked as a teacher and farmer. Reportedly shot by a sheriff while running for a second term.”
“Barbara Jordan knew little of her Grandpa Patten's story, except that it combined hope and failure, triumph, and tragedy. It certainly shaped, however, her view of (B)lack history in general,” Rogers stated.
Education and Accomplishments
In 1956, Jordan graduated magna cum laude from Texas Southern University and was accepted at Boston University’s law school. Three years later, Jordan earned her law degree as one of only two African American women in her class.
According to Kaiser Family Foundation, (KFF), Jordan (who served as a board member) received 31 honorary doctorates and numerous national awards, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1994.
In 1993, she was the first recipient of KFF’s Nelson Mandela Award for Health and Human Rights.
A Very Personal Life
On March 5, 1996, The Advocate wrote, “… parts of Jordan's profile (was) public knowledge. But other aspects of her life were not, and she tried to keep them that way. It wasn't until after her death that people began openly discussing her lesbianism, a topic she had never addressed during her life.”
Jordan’s 30-year relationship with Nancy Earl, an educational psychologist, was an open secret among those closest to her, but she chose never to discuss it publicly.
In 2023, QT Voices’ writer Lisa L Moore quotes Jordan’s description of their first meeting during a camping trip with friends, “Nancy and I sat there playing the guitar; we had just met but we were singing and drinking and having a swell time … I remember I thought: This is something I would like to repeat. I’d like to have another party like that. Nancy Earl is a fun person to be with… I had discovered I could relax at parties like that where I was safe.”
Eventually, the couple purchased a five-acre plot of land together and built a home. Although they entertained and socialized as a couple, Nancy remained in Texas while Barbara lived in Washington, D.C.
In 1979, Jordan co-authored (with Shelby Hearon) a memoir, Barbara Jordan, a Self Portrait. That same year, she retired from politics in 1979 and became a professor at the University of Texas at Austin’s Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs.
She died on January 17, 1996, and is buried in the Texas State Cemetery in Austin.
Even in death, Jordan broke barriers as the first Black woman to be interred there.
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