Barbara Jordan (politician)

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Barbara Jordan

Barbara Charline Jordan (* 21st February 1936 in Houston , Texas ; † 17th January 1996 in Austin , Texas) was an American high school teacher and politician of the Democratic Party , which a few years the state Texas in the US House of Representatives took on the Democratic National Convention was the first African American woman to deliver a keynote address in 1976 and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1994.

Life

Texas Senator and Congresswoman

After visiting the Phillis Wheatley - High School in Houston, they began a study of 1952 Political Science at Texas Southern University and graduated in 1956 with a Bachelor of Arts (BA Political Science) magna cum laude from. A subsequent postgraduate study of law at the Law School of Boston University she completed in 1959 with a Bachelor of Laws (LL.B.). After her admission as a lawyer in the states of Massachusetts and Texas, she worked as a lawyer . Most recently, she was an administrative assistant to a judge at Harris County District Court in 1966 .

In 1967 she began her political career in the Democratic Party and was elected to the Texas Senate in 1967 , to which she was a member until 1973.

In the US House of Representatives

Barbara Jordan (1976)

She was then elected as a member of the US House of Representatives and represented in this from January 3, 1973 to January 3, 1979 the 18th congressional electoral district of Texas. During this time she achieved national fame as she was the first African American woman to give a keynote address next to John Glenn at the Democratic National Convention and was at times also considered a possible Democratic candidate for the office of US Vice President .

Opinion on the impeachment charge against Richard Nixon

She also gave a high profile address on July 27, 1974 when the House of Representatives voted on an abuse of office charge against President Richard Nixon . In it, she made it unmistakably clear that an indictment against the president is serious, but according to the constitution, it does not mean a conviction or a guilty verdict. “My position today is that of examining magistrate ... my belief in the constitution is all-encompassing. And I'm not going to sit here and watch the degradation, decomposition and destruction of the Constitution. "

As a professor and author

After she refused to run again in the congressional elections in 1978 , she became a professor at the University of Texas at Austin in 1979 and taught there until 1982. In addition, Barbara Jordan, who had been in a lesbian relationship for twenty years , published together with Shelby Hearon in 1979 an autobiography called Barbara Jordan, A Self Portrait .

Civic engagement and Presidential Medal of Freedom

In 1980 she was one of the co-founders of the People for the American Way , a liberal political action group with Norman Lear , with the express intention of countering the growing influence of the Religious Right , the strictly conservative American churches. She was also Chair of the Lyndon B. Johnson Centennial in National Policy from 1982 to 1986, and intermittent Chair of the United States Immigration Reform Commission .

Barbara Jordan was honored several times for her longstanding commitment to civil rights and freedom and was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame in 1990. In 1992 she again gave the keynote speech at the Democratic National Convention.

After she had already received the Spingarn Medal in 1992 , she was finally awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1994, one of the two highest civilian awards in the United States , alongside the congressional gold medal of honor.

Barbara Jordan, who suffered from multiple sclerosis , died of complications from pneumonia .

literature

  • Ira B. Bryant: Barbara Charline Jordan: From the Ghetto to the Capital . Houston: D. Armstrong Co. 1977.
  • Austin Teutsch: Barbara Jordan: The Biography . Cedar Park, Golden Touch Press. 1997.
  • Mary Beth Rogers: Barbara Jordan: American Hero . New York: Bantam Books. 1998.
  • James Mendelsohn: Barbara Jordan: Getting Things . Fitzhenry & Whiteside. 2000.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. Watergate - The Incorruptible