Who was the first African American to serve in the Texas Senate and to serve in the US House of Representatives?

Barbara Charline Jordan (February 21, 1936 – January 17, 1996) was an American politician and a leader of the Civil Rights movement. She was the first African American elected to the Texas Senate after Reconstruction, the first southern black female elected to the United States House of Representatives, and the first African-American woman to deliver the keynote address at a Democratic National Convention. She received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, among numerous other honors. On her death, she became the first African-American woman to be buried in the Texas State Cemetery.

Jordan taught political science at Tuskegee Institute in Alabama for a year. In 1960, she returned to Houston, passed the bar and started a private law practice.Jordan campaigned unsuccessfully in 1962 and 1964 for the Texas House of Representatives. Her persistence 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 that body. Re-elected to a full term in the Texas Senate 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. She received extensive support from former President Lyndon B. Johnson, who helped her secure a position on the House Judiciary Committee. In 1974, she made an influential, televised speech before the House Judiciary Committee supporting the process of impeachment of Richard Nixon, Johnson's successor as President. In 1975, she was appointed by Carl Albert, then Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, to the Democratic Steering and Policy Committee.In 1976, Jordan, mentioned as a possible running mate to Jimmy Carter of Georgia, 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[who?] 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.Jordan 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. She again was a keynote speaker at the Democratic National Convention in 1992.In 1994 and until her death in 1996, Jordan 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.” Opponents of current US immigration policy have cited her willingness to penalize employers who violate US immigration regulations, tighten border security, oppose amnesty or any other pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants,[citation needed] and broaden the grounds for the deportation of legal immigrants.

Jordan has received many honors, including the following:

   1984: Inducted into the Texas Women's Hall of Fame.

   1990: Inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame

   1992: The Spingarn Medal from the NAACP.

   1993: The Elizabeth Blackwell Award from Hobart and William Smith Colleges.

   1994: The Presidential Medal of Freedom.

   1995: The second ever female awardee of the United States Military Academy's Sylvanus Thayer Award.

The main terminal at Austin-Bergstrom International Airport is named after Jordan, as well as a boulevard in central Austin. Several schools bear Jordan's name, including an elementary school in Odessa, Texas and Austin, Texas, Barbara Jordan Early College Prep School, a middle school in Cibolo, Texas, and 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.

• 
  Hers was the booming voice that thundered across a nation—inspiring political leaders to greater vision, championing the underdog and fighting for truth on the House Judiciary Committee during the Nixon impeachment hearings in 1974.

  Always mindful of her humble beginnings in Houston’s Fifth Ward, Barbara Jordan overcame innumerable obstacles to become a lawyer and win elected office as the first African American since Reconstruction to serve in the Texas Senate and then as the first African American woman from the South to serve in the U.S. House of Representatives. With her striking oratory, charismatic leadership and dedication to public service, Jordan touched countless lives during her years in government and later as a professor at The University of Texas at Austin’s Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs.

  Barbara Jordan was the first African American since Reconstruction to serve in the Texas Senate and then the first African American woman from the South to serve in the U.S. House of Representatives.

  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.

  
  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 most powerful speech of the hearings.

  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.

  Upon leaving the U.S. Congress in 1979, Jordan rejected offers to practice corporate law and instead accepted an invitation to teach public affairs and ethics at the LBJ School.

  “Jordan was intrigued by the notion of teaching,” said Mary Beth Rogers, a former LBJ School faculty member and the author of Barbara Jordan: American Hero. “She felt that she had learned so much through her own experiences and that her knowledge might help others.”

  
  Already considered a living legend when she came to the LBJ School, Jordan quickly earned a reputation as an extraordinary teacher. “Jordan called on her experience and her tremendous intellectual capacity to teach about justice and equality, what she considered to be the two fundamental principles of America,” Rogers said.

  Students loved her sense of humor and distinctive teaching style, but it was her passion for her subject matter that made her seminars among the most sought after graduate classes on campus. For 17 years she after taught at the LBJ School until her death in 1996.

  The news of Jordan’s death on January 17, 1996, produced a nationwide outpouring of emotion and respect. Media coverage of her life and contributions filled newspapers and broadcast news in the days following her death, and memorial tributes from schools, community organizations and others were abundant. Memorials to Jordan on The University of Texas at Austin campus began Jan. 19 with march from the university Tower to the LBJ Library, where Jordan’s body lay in state for 24 hours.

  
  The words spoken in her honor described a woman whose public image was larger than life, but whose private persona was full of warmth, humor and humanity. Speaking at the memorial service, DeAnn Friedholm, M.P.Aff. ’79, described her friend and former teacher in a way that spoke for the entire LBJ School community: “So why was BJ so special? So admired? So loved? Because she spoke to the highest good in us all—she taught us to know our own hearts and minds, and to travel the high road.... She believed that each of us can actually change the world, and her investment in us gave us the confidence that we really could.”

  It was that call to action that motivated students to organize the first Barbara Jordan forum in 1997, a year after Jordan’s death. Originally called the Barbara Jordan Memorial Forum on Diversity in Public Policy, the event was organized to put a positive light on diversity in the immediate aftermath of the Hopwood decision, which prohibited the use of race in the admissions process in Texas.

  
  In keeping with Jordan’s focus on social justice and equality, forum themes have broadened to include a range of issues, including the digital divide, education, race relations and community empowerment. As a way to celebrate Jordan’s life, student organizers hold the forum each year in February—Jordan’s birth month and the month the nation celebrates Black history.

  The Seventh Annual Barbara Jordan National Forum on Public Policy, scheduled for Feb.27 to March 1, is called “Rejuvenating Ethics, Responsibility and Commitment in Today's America.

  Barbara Jordan’s keynote address at the 1976 Democratic national convention helped to rally support for Jimmy Carter’s presidential campaign.

  This year’s forum organizers say their main objective is to revive Jordan’s messages about civic duty and show ordinary citizens how they can get involved and bring about positive changes in their communities.

  “Americans are struggling to define our responsibility to our country, the ethics of our leaders and the commitment we must make to improve the lives of all our citizens,” said forum co-chair Alene Riley, who is also the LBJ School Class of 2003 Barbara Jordan Scholar. “We want participants to return to their schools, workplaces and communities thinking about these big questions and on their way to finding answers.”

  
  Among this year’s speakers are former Texas Lieutenant Governor Ben Barnes, former Wall Street Journal senior editor Joseph Boyce and Rogers, who is now chief strategist of KLRU, Austin’s public television station.

  “Barbara Jordan dedicated her life to others,” said LBJ School Dean Ed Dorn. “It was her dream to see public policy leaders from a wide variety of backgrounds working together to improve the quality of life in their communities. The Barbara Jordan Memorial Forum is a way to continue building on her dream.”

  For information about the Seventh Annual Barbara Jordan National Forum on Public Policy, which is free and open to the public, visit the Barbara Jordan Forum Web site.

  Special thanks to the University of Texas in Austin

  http://www.utexas.edu/features/archive/2003/jordan.html