Barbara Charline Jordan February 21, β January 17, was an American lawyer, educator, [ 1 ] and politician. House from the former Confederacy since , alongside Andrew Young of Georgia. Jordan achieved notoriety for delivering a powerful opening statement [ 5 ] at the House Judiciary Committee hearings during the impeachment process against Richard Nixon.
In , she became the first African American, and the first woman, to deliver a keynote address at a Democratic National Convention. Commission on Immigration Reform. She received the Presidential Medal of Freedom , among numerous other honors.
Through her mother, Jordan was the great-granddaughter of Edward Patton , who was one of the last African American members of the Texas House of Representatives prior to disenfranchisement of Black Texans under Jim Crow.
Jordan attended Roberson Elementary School. Reid, elocutionist Ashton J. Oliver, and speech and drama teacher Robert T. Jordan credited a speech she heard in her high school years by Edith S. Sampson with inspiring her to become an attorney. Jordan taught political science at Tuskegee Institute in Alabama for a year. Kennedy - Lyndon B. Johnson campaign, traveling to African American churches in Houston to encourage people to vote.
(mh=O2xLnNXdQBzriM6d)0.jpg "Whores in West Jordan")
Jordan campaigned unsuccessfully in and for the Texas House of Representatives. With Jordan elected to the Texas Senate , she became the first black woman to serve in that body.
