Barbara Jordan was the first everything. She was the first Black woman elected to the state legislature, the first Black woman in America to oversee a legislative body, the first Black woman elected to the U.S. Congress from the South since 1898, and the first Black person and first woman to give a keynote speech at the Democratic National Convention.
Jordan, a native Houstonian, moved to Austin after retiring from politics in 1979. While you might be familiar with her name, or the statue of her at Austin-Bergstrom International Airport, here are some other things about the trailblazer you should know:
📃 She Successfully Led an Effort to Include Hispanics in the Voting Rights Act.
When the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which bars racial discrimination in voting, was up for extension 10 years later, Jordan pushed for it to include language minorities, notably Hispanic voters, the Texas State Historical Association says.
“The barriers continue,” Jordan said at the time. “And so must the Voting Rights Act — the most effective statute minorities have to guarantee that one day those barriers will come down.”
✏️ Jordan Couldn’t Attend UT Because of Segregation, but Taught There as a Professor for Almost 20 Years.
Jordan was part of the 1956 graduating class at Texas Southern University, the school’s first, after it was created by the Texas legislature to avoid integrating UT. But 22 years later, Jordan was appointed the Lyndon Johnson Chair in National Policy at UT’s Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs, and taught there until the early 1990s.
⚖️ Jordan Was Almost the First Black Woman on the U.S. Supreme Court.
Jordan was former President Bill Clinton’s first choice for the U.S. Supreme Court seat that was later filled by Ruth Bader Ginsburg. According to the Washington Post, Clinton asked former Texas Governor Ann Richards if Jordan would be interested in the seat. Richards sent her assistant to ask Jordan, who laughed and said, “Oh, think who I’d have to sit next to,” before adding, “No. I like my life.” Clinton later speculated that Jordan’s health was part of why she declined the offer. Jordan was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis and died from pneumonia and leukemia in 1996.
