Barbara Jordan

Barbara Charline Jordan was born in Houston in 1936 and educated in the city's public schools before earning her bachelor's degree at Texas Southern University and a law degree from Boston University. After returning to Houston to practice law and participate in politics, she won election to the Texas Senate in 1966. Jordan became the first Black state senator in Texas since 1883 and the first Black woman elected to the Texas Legislature, then served as president pro tempore and briefly as acting governor when the governor and lieutenant governor were out of state.

Jordan won election to the U.S. House in 1972 from a Houston-based district and served three terms. As a member of the House Judiciary Committee, her televised opening statement during the 1974 Nixon impeachment proceedings made her a national figure for the precision and force of her constitutional argument. She later delivered a keynote address at the 1976 Democratic National Convention. After leaving Congress, Jordan joined the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin, where she taught public policy and ethics for the final phase of her career. She received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1994 and died in Austin in 1996.

Jordan's career made a series of institutional breakthroughs, but her importance is larger than a list of firsts. Her effectiveness in the Texas Senate and Congress, and especially her Watergate remarks, made constitutional argument and ethical public service central to her national reputation.

Her Texas story also connects Houston's Black civic and educational institutions to state government, Congress and the University of Texas. Texas Southern University preserves her papers, while the LBJ School continues to teach and commemorate her legacy through programs carrying her name.