[Congressional Bills 111th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H. Con. Res. 8 Introduced in House (IH)]







111th CONGRESS
  1st Session
H. CON. RES. 8

  Expressing the sense of Congress that a commemorative postage stamp 
           should be issued honoring Barbara Charline Jordan.


_______________________________________________________________________


                    IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                            January 7, 2009

Ms. Jackson-Lee of Texas submitted the following concurrent resolution; 
 which was referred to the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform

_______________________________________________________________________

                         CONCURRENT RESOLUTION


 
  Expressing the sense of Congress that a commemorative postage stamp 
           should be issued honoring Barbara Charline Jordan.

Whereas Barbara Charline Jordan was an American original as a public servant and 
        later as a professor, and she transcended race, gender, and politics;
Whereas Barbara Charline Jordan was never reluctant or afraid to speak truth to 
        power and was a tireless and unceasing advocate for equal opportunity 
        for all, equal justice under the law, and transparency, accountability, 
        and ethics in government;
Whereas in 1966 Barbara Charline Jordan became the first African-American woman 
        elected to the senate of the State of Texas and was the only woman in 
        the 1967-1968 legislative session;
Whereas in 1972 Barbara Charline Jordan became the first African-American woman 
        from the State of Texas elected to Congress after Reconstruction and 
        served with distinction on the Committee on the Judiciary of the House 
        of Representatives;
Whereas one of Barbara Charline Jordan's Federal legislative achievements was 
        the 1975 renewal and expansion of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 to 
        include language minorities;
Whereas in 1975 a leading national magazine surveyed 700 political opinion 
        leaders, and they ranked Barbara Charline Jordan at the top of a list of 
        women they would like to see become president;
Whereas in 1976 Barbara Charline Jordan delivered a keynote address entitled 
        ``Who Then Will Speak for the Common Good?'' at the Democratic National 
        Convention and in doing so became the first African-American woman to 
        deliver a keynote address at the Democratic National Convention;
Whereas Barbara Charline Jordan left Congress in 1979 to join the faculty of the 
        Lyndon Baines Johnson School of Public Policy at the University of 
        Texas, where she held the endowed Lyndon B. Johnson Centennial Chair in 
        National Policy, named for one of her political mentors, President 
        Lyndon Baines Johnson;
Whereas in 1994 Barbara Charline Jordan was awarded the Presidential Medal of 
        Freedom by President William Jefferson Clinton for being ``the most 
        outspoken moral voice of the American political system'';
Whereas on January 17, 1996, Barbara Charline Jordan died at the young age of 59 
        from complications of leukemia; and
Whereas commemorative postage stamps have been commissioned to honor other great 
        leaders in American history: Now, therefore, be it
    Resolved by the House of Representatives (the Senate concurring), 
That it is the sense of Congress that--
            (1) the United States Postal Service should issue a 
        commemorative postage stamp honoring Barbara Charline Jordan; 
        and
            (2) the Citizens' Stamp Advisory Committee should recommend 
        to the Postmaster General that such stamp be issued.
                                 <all>