Whereas Barbara Charline Jordan was born on February 21,
1936, in Houston, Texas;
Whereas Barbara Charline Jordan was a United States
politician elected as the first African-American to the Texas Senate after
reconstruction and the first Southern African-American woman ever elected to
the United States House of Representatives, representing the 18th District of
Texas;
Whereas in 1972, Barbara Charline Jordan served with
distinction on the Committee on the Judiciary of the House of
Representatives;
Whereas Barbara Charline Jordan was and still remains an
inspirational figure in United States politics through her powerful public
speaking and her triumphant refusal to be defined by disability;
Whereas Barbara Charline Jordan became the voice of
inspiration during a time of a national challenge and called for integrity from
United States leadership, stating before the Committee on the Judiciary of the
House of Representatives that common sense would be revolted if we
engaged upon this process for petty reasons. Pettiness cannot be allowed to
stand in the face of such overwhelming problems. So today we are not petty. We
are trying to be big, because the task we have before us is a big
one.
;
Whereas in 1975, a leading national magazine surveyed 700
political opinion leaders who ranked Barbara Charline Jordan at the top of a
list of women they would like to see become President of the United
States;
Whereas in 1976, Barbara Charline Jordan was mentioned as
a possible running mate to Jimmy Carter, and that same year became the first
African-American woman to deliver the keynote address at the Democratic
National Convention;
Whereas despite not being a candidate, Barbara Charline
Jordan received one delegate vote for President at the convention;
Whereas in the summer of 1976, Barbara Charline Jordan’s
speech in New York was ranked fifth in the “Top 100 American Speeches of the
20th Century” list and is considered by many historians to be the best
convention keynote speech in modern history;
Whereas in 1979, Barbara Charline Jordan left Congress 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;
Whereas in 1993, Barbara Charline Jordan received the
Elizabeth Blackwell Award from Hobart and William Smith Colleges;
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”, adding to
her other prestigious honors, namely, the Texas and National Women’s Halls of
Fame and the United States Military Academy’s Sylvanus Thayer Award;
Whereas today, the main terminal at Austin-Bergstrom
International Airport is named after her, as are an elementary school in
Odessa, Texas, a middle school in Cibolo, Texas, Barbara Jordan High School in
Houston, Texas, a YMCA in Martinsville, Indiana, and a United States Postal
Service facility in Houston, Texas; and
Whereas Barbara Charline Jordan’s papers are held at the
Barbara Jordan Archives at Texas Southern University, and her speeches are
collected in a 2007 publication from the University of Texas Press entitled,
Barbara Jordan: Speaking the Truth with Eloquent Thunder
: Now,
therefore, be it
That the House of Representatives
celebrates and honors the continuing legacy of the late Honorable Barbara
Charline Jordan, on the occasion of the 75th anniversary of her birth, to allow
the memory of her resounding voice to continue to speak the truth with eloquent
thunder.