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achievements have been, and we have
a feeling she will always be a shining
star; we would want her to remember
that femininity and self-enhancement
is the right of every female-Forever
and Ever. A young 38, and appearing
much younger which is somehow typi-
cal of Southern-bred females, such
thoughts nonetheless, may seem frivo-
lous to this dedicated and ever busy
public servant.
Barbara Jordan does have an ex-
ceedingly busy life as her public rec-
ords shows, and this has been true of
her entire pattern of life. She gradu-
ated from public school in Houston in
the upper 5% of her class, but always
found time for numerous community
and church activities. As a minister's
daughter, nothing less was expected of
her.
A few short months after her 20th
birthday in 1959, Barbara graduated
magna cum laude from Texas South-
ern University with a Bachelor's de-
gree in political science and history. At
TSU she participated actively in cam-
pus life. As president of her school's
undergraduate chapter of Delta
Sigma Theta sorority, she would have
the first opportunity to test her ability
to unify and influence. For it is mainly
in club and fraternal organizations
that blacks have demonstrated their
greatest cohesiveness. What can be ac-
complished at this level is probably a
mirror of a person's strength in any
endeavor.
Choosing Delta probably would be
characteristic of young Barbara's early
seriousness. Incorporated as a non-
profit organization with emphasis on
finer womanhood and service, the so-
rority attracts the cream of the aca-
demic crop on campuses across the na-
tion. Ms. Jordan, like her sister Deltas,
160,000 strong, proudly embraced the
sorority's ideals and these dedicated
females can be found wherever there
is an important job to be done. For
Congresswoman Jordan, Delta was a
logical progression to one of the
highest public offices in the land.
Her public victories are many: the
first black woman ever elected to con-
gress from a confederate state, and
only the second black congresswoman
in the history of the nation (the first
was Shirley Chisolm of Brooklyn,
elected just one year earlier); the firstblack woman ever elected to the Sen-
ate in Texas; the first black elected to
the State Senate since 1883, and the
first black woman to preside over a
legislative body in the United States.
The "Texas Observer," a local period-
ical, stated, "She was probably the
first black person and maybe the first
woman many of the senators had to
take seriously."
In the spring of 1972, as the date of
her election to Congress approached,
a radio commentator announced,
"Saturday, hundreds of thousands of
people will be going to the polls in the
country . . . and 80 to 100,000 people
will vote in the 18th Congressional
District; and the person who wins the
Democratic nomination on May 6th
stands to be the first black person from
the South to sit in Congress since Re-
construction."
Then Jordan's voice came on,
characteristically incisive and re-
sounding with an intriguing mix of
Texan and Boston accents, she ex-
plained, "The 18th is the core District,
the heart of the city, the pulse of the
city ... It has every kind of diversity-
ethnic, economic, and all the problems
of job opportunities and unemploy-
ment. It's all there. This District repre-
sents a concentration of all the prob-
lems of America localized into one
spot." This was the territory she
fought three black men to win. And
she trounced them all that Saturday.
A year and a half later, we spoke
with Ms. Jordan after she spent two
weeks in Europe. She told MsTIQUE
that she'd gone to five countries; Bel-
gium, England, Spain, Scotland, and
Italy, along with other members of the
Judiciary Subcommittee of the House
of Representatives, to be briefed
about the military installations and
also to discuss the level of troops in
Europe. "We were investigating
whether a mutual reduction of forces
would be possible. I think the U.S.
presence in Europe is valuable,
though there is the question of how
much manpower or money is desira-
ble."
Asked about the effect of Watergate
on the work of congressmen, she re-
sponded, "Democrats are focusing
on legislation that can get enacted
by a Democratic-controlled Congress.
There is no preoccupation with theWatergate or Agnew investigations.
The Senate Investigating Committee
ought to go forward with discovering
facts and those practices which have
tended towards corruption in govern-
ment. But the idea that these investi-
gations are an interference with the
functioning of Congress is a miscon-
ception being put forward by the Pres-
ident. Watergate has not stymied Con-
gress.
In this era of discussions over the
place of women in society, some peo-
ple may wonder what family condi-
tions can instill in girl-children feel-
ings of self-reliance, independence,
and capability such as we see in Bar-
bara Jordan. Well, she was brought up
in a Southern Baptist atmosphere-no
drinking, smoking or dancing. She has
described her father as "a strict disci-
plinarian. I always had to keep the lid
on. Because of my great respect for
him ... It was unthinkable to have a
hot exchange of words with him-not
I, nor my sisters or my mother." In
fact, in this family of three daughters,
none ever stood up to the patriarch,
and even her mother was described as
a very quiet, retiring sort of woman.
So much for models of women "taking
charge" in the immediate environ-
ment, at least; though blacks have al-
ways had these kinds of models in the
community at large.
One of her childhood girlfriends
told a reporter, "She has always been,
even as a little girl, very sure of herself.
We knew from the very beginning she
would do something different from the
rest of us. She was always the leader.
We always respected her ability. You
know, it's funny. In those days, the
kids who were the leaders were usu-
ally slim, and pretty as defined by
white standards. It's different with
black kids now. But even then, with
Barbara it was different-it wasn't
that she tried to be the leader or strove
for it, we just recognized her."
Even so, one Texas State Senator al-
ways referred to her with a snide racial
remark (but only when she wasn't
around). Others joined the attack.
The sting for all black leaders,
though, is not in the name-calling
done by those outside the race-open-
CONTINUED ON PAGE 62JULY 1974
61
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[Barbara Jordan Scrapbook, July - September, 1974], book, 1974; (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth616583/m1/53/: accessed May 22, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas Southern University.