Date of Birth
21 February 1936,
Houston, Texas, USA
Date of Death
17 January 1996, Austin, Texas, USA (pneumonia and leukemia)
Birth Name
Barbara Charline Jordan
Nickname
B.J.
Trivia
Inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame in 1990.
She received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1994.
She was a Texas state senator (the first African-American since 1883) during the late sixties and early seventies (eventually becoming president pro tempore).
Noted for her oratorical skills.
She became famous during the Watergate hearings in 1974.
Keynote speaker at the Democratic Convention of 1976 (the first woman to do so) and again in 1992.
Ethics advisor for Gov. Ann Richards in the early nineties.
She served as chairwoman of the United States Commission on Immigration Reform in 1994.
She survived a near-drowning incident at her home in 1988.
She was the first black woman from a Southern state to serve in Congress (1973-1979). She was also the first of two black congressman to serve from the South in the twentieth century.
In her later years, suffered from multiple sclerosis and was confined to a wheelchair.
She published her autobiography, Barbara Jordan: A Self Portrait, in 1979.
In the eighties, she was a professor at the University of Texas.
U.S. Representative from Texas (1973-79).
Biography in: "American National Biography". Supplement 1, pp. 302-304. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002.
She was subject of a play by Kristine Thatcher, "Voice of Good Hope," which the author directed at BoarsHead Theater, Lansing, MI, opening March 16, 2007, and featuring Patricia Idlette as Jordan.
Personal Quotes
"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." (spoken while as a member of the House Judiciary Committee in 1974).
... statue of Barbara Jordan has ...
Barbara Jordan Memorial Statue
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