TEXAS--The late legislator Barbara Jordan—who is honored with statues at Austin-Bergstrom International Airport and the University of Texas at Austin—will receive another honor in 2011.
A portrait of Jordan, who died in 1996, will be featured on a postage stamp in the U.S. Postal Service’s Black Heritage series. The Postal Service called Jordan “one of the most respected and influential American politicians of the 20th century.” The stamp will debut in September 2011.
Jordan, a Democrat, was the first African-American woman elected to the Texas legislature, the first African-American elected to the Texas Senate since 1883 and the first African-American woman elected to Congress from the South.
“She captured the attention and admiration of the nation with her intelligence and integrity, her ardent patriotism and steadfast dedication to public service, and her eloquent oratory and charismatic leadership,” the Postal Service said.
In 1976, Jordan became the first woman and the first African-American to deliver a keynote address to the Democratic National Convention. Her televised speech—considered the highlight of the convention—described Americans as “a people in search of a national community … attempting to fulfill our national purpose, to create and sustain a society in which all of us are equal.”
Jordan served three terms in Congress.
Following her congressional career, Jordan became a professor of public affairs and ethics at the University of Texas in 1979. Three years later, Jordan was named the university’s Lyndon B. Johnson Centennial Chair in National Policy.
Jordan testified in 1987 against the confirmation of Robert Bork to the U.S. Supreme Court. She was a keynote speaker at the Democratic National Convention in 1992. A year later, President Clinton named her chair of the U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform, a post she held until her death.
Jordan received several honors throughout her career, including the Eleanor Roosevelt Humanities Award, the Harry S. Truman Public Service Award, the NAACP Spingarn Medal and the Nelson Mandela Award for Health and Human Rights. In 1994, President Clinton presented Jordan with the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, a Texas Republican, said Jordan’s achievements “cement her standing among the great cultural and political icons of our time.”
The postage stamp “will help us remember her life’s accomplishments,” Cornyn said, “but the true commemoration of her life can be seen in the growing numbers of African-American and minority women serving as elected officials across the country.”
Posted By: Siebra Muhammad
Saturday, January 1st 2011 at 3:04PM
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