Congresswoman Barbara Jordan

Barbara Jordan, the Fifth Ward’s voice in Congress

ByMarcus Tolliver

Photo: Adam Cuerden, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

Barbara Charline Jordan was born in Houston in 1936 and grew up in the Fifth Ward, a historically Black neighborhood. She attended Phillis Wheatley High School, where she was a champion debater, and went on to Texas Southern University and Boston University School of Law.

Texas Senate

After practicing law in Houston, she ran for the Texas House twice and lost. In 1966 she was elected to the Texas Senate, the first Black person in that chamber since 1883 and the first Black woman. She earned respect from colleagues and became president pro tempore.

Congress

In 1972 she was elected to Congress from Houston, becoming the first Black woman from the South to serve in the U.S. House. During the House Judiciary Committee’s impeachment hearings on President Nixon in 1974, she gave a speech on the Constitution that drew national attention. In 1976, she became the first Black woman to deliver the keynote address at the Democratic National Convention.

Later years

Jordan left Congress in 1979 and taught at the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas. She received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1994.

She had multiple sclerosis and later leukemia, and died in 1996. She was the first Black woman buried in the Texas State Cemetery. Schools, streets and a terminal at Austin’s airport bear her name, and Houston continues to honor her as one of its most accomplished public figures.

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