Changemaker 24: Barbara Jordan

Born in Houston in 1936 in Texas, Jordan was an influential lawyer, educator, politician, defender of the Constitution and social justice advocate.

Jordan was the first Black woman elected to the United States Congress when she won a seat in the US House of Representatives in 1972. In 1966, she was the first Black woman elected to the Texas Senate and was the first African-American senator of the state since 1883.

She spoke out ardently against racial discrimination and social injustice and sponsored legislation for the expansion of the Voting Rights Acts of 1965.

One of Jordan’s best-known speeches is her opening statement at the House Judiciary Committee hearing during the impeachment process against Richard Nixon in 1974. She became the first woman and first Black American to deliver the keynote speech at the Democratic National Convention. 

She retired from Congress in 1979 to continue her work as a Professor at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at her alma mater, the University of Texas. As an active public speaker and advocate, she testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee in opposition to the nomination of Robert Bork, who opposed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, to the US Supreme Court in 1987. In 1994, Jordan was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Clinton and the NAACP awarded her the Spingarn Medal.

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