Barbara Jordan
American Hero
-
-
3.0 • 1 Rating
-
-
- $11.99
-
- $11.99
Publisher Description
Barbara Jordan was the first African American to serve in the Texas Senate since Reconstruction, the first black woman elected to Congress from the South, and the first to deliver the keynote address at a national party convention. Yet Jordan herself remained a mystery, a woman so private that even her close friends did not know the name of the illness that debilitated her for two decades until it struck her down at the age of fifty-nine.
In Barbara Jordan, Mary Beth Rogers deftly explores the forces that shaped the moral character and quiet dignity of this extraordinary woman. She reveals the seeds of Jordan's trademark stoicism while recapturing the essence of a black woman entering politics just as the civil rights movement exploded across the nation. Celebrating Jordan's elegance, passion, and patriotism, this illuminating portrayal gives new depth to our understanding of one of the most influential women of our time-a woman whose powerful convictions and flair for oratorical drama changed the political landscape of America's twentieth century.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Rogers, who knew Jordan (1936-1996) as a political and academic colleague at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs in Austin, Tex., skillfully weaves together the events of Jordan's personal life with her public persona and the painful struggle for black voting rights in the South. Born in Houston's black ghetto, Jordan attended an all-black high school and college. Not until she began law school in Boston did she understand just how "separate but equal" had denied her the education her white classmates had received. After graduating, Jordan returned to Houston but quickly found that a law career was not fulfilling. She stuffed envelopes for the Democratic Party in 1960 until the party discovered that her commanding physical presence, rich oratory and personal charisma made her a valuable speaker. In segregationist Texas (even LBJ could only convince four of 24 Texans in Congress to vote for his Civil Rights Act), she was determined to work within the system. She won the support of the white male party leadership, beginning her elective career at the age of 31 in the Texas State Senate; then, in 1972, she was elected to Congress. Jordan kept her private life private: she never wed, claiming she didn't want to chose between success and marriage, and when she could no longer hide her multiple sclerosis, she retired from Congress, though not from public speaking. Rogers's writing tends to be stolid at best, but with the full cooperation of the Jordan estate and interviews with staff, family and friends, she has managed to create an inspiring story of an extraordinary woman.
