Barbara Jordan

Feb. 29th 2008



Barbara Jordan was born Barbara Charline Jordan on the 21st of February 1936 in Houston Texas.

*Achievements*
Barbara served in the House of Representatives from 1973 to 1979 [a democrat]. She was the first black woman to serve on the US Congress from the South. Both as a state senator and as a U.S. Congresswoman, Jordan sponsored bills that championed the cause of poor, Black, and disadvantaged people. One of the most important bills as senator was the Workman's Compensation Act, which increased the maximum benefits paid to injured workers. As a congresswoman, she sponsored legislation to broaden the Voting Rights Act of 1965 to cover Mexican Americans in Texas and other southwestern states and to extend its authority to those states where minorities had been denied the right to vote or had had their rights restricted by unfair registration practices, such as literacy tests.

*Time line*
1936- Barbara Jordan was born in Houston, Texas.
1948-1952- Attended Phyllis Wheatley High School and graduated in the upper five percent of her class.
1952-1956- Attended Texas Southern University and pledged Delta Sigma Theta Sorority.
Barbara graduated she graduated magna cum laude in political science and history.
1962-Jordan ran for a seat in the Texas House of Representatives, but lost.
1964- Ran for the Texas House of Representatives again, but lost again.
1966- Elected to the newly drawn Texas Senate seat becoming the first Black to serve in that
body since 1883.
1966-1975- Accomplished many things that she set out to accomplish during this time, in terms
of politics. For example, she sponsored bills that helped the poor, black, and
disadvantaged people.
1996- Barbara Jordan died of complications from pneumonia on January 17.

*Quote*
"My faith in the Constitution is whole, it is complete, it is total."

*Impacts from the outside World*
Society impacted Jordan's life in a positive way. Even though she had to push through brick walls to accomplish what she set out to accomplish, it drove her to go even further with the world thinking that she would not succeed.

*My observations*
I discovered that Barbara Jordan was a successful black woman who was a step stone for Black people because she ran for office when the world was still extremely racists. She showed young blacks that they can do anything if they believed in themselves and worked hard to achieve it.

*Citation*
"Barbara Jordan." Barbara Jordan-Wikipedia. 07 March 2008. GNU Free Documentation License. 7 Mar 2008