The life and times of Barbara Jordan: a twentieth-century Baptist and political pioneer: the world was a different place for women in 1962 when Barbara Charline Jordan lost her first race for the Texas House of Representatives.

Some people said that she probably lost the race because people were not accustomed to voting for a woman. Jordan said, "Well, now, that is totally ridiculous, and I'll just have to try to alter that." (1) Because of the path cleared by Jordan, the doors that had been closed are open wider now for women and for minorities. (2) With spellbinding oratory, political savvy, and a self-sufficiency that raised her above petty partisanship, this United States congresswoman and celebrated black Baptist leader blazed a trail through the electoral ranks in the 1970s, overcoming institutional bias to become one of the most respected representatives of the downtrodden in the United States. (3)

By whatever unstated, immeasurable, invisible standards the American people apply to candidates for Congress, women have seldom been their choice. Over the course of history, however, a select few have been imbued with a particular kind of motivation and drive to win congressional seats, sustain the support of their constituencies, and exert commendable leadership, thereby helping to shape the course of government and, thus, the course of the nation. Barbara Jordan was one of them. A black southern woman and Protestant, Jordan was raised in a meager economic environment, attended college, never married, and rose out of the ranks of poverty and the ordinary to accomplish extraordinary deeds.

When the story of the twentieth century is told, the life and times of Barbara Jordan will be found etched in a prominent place in the annals of African American, American, and congressional history. Her stellar and laborious engagement on the social issues of her time through speeches that integrated her beliefs and values in ethics, religion, and law, undergirded her efforts to create a better society. (4) Throughout her life, Jordan was a voice for common ground, for the ties that bind. Hers was a powerful clarion of healing, uplifting words that challenged and inspired women and minorities, undeniably all Americans, to reach for something higher, to believe in themselves and their own ability to change the world and make it a better place.

The purpose of this article is to illuminate the life, works, political contributions, and Baptist heritage of Barbara Charline Jordan. Before examining her public service that changed the face of politics and the lives of humankind, an introduction to the childhood of this African American girl, who joined a Baptist church at age ten and became the South's first black female United States congresswoman, is not only appropriate, but necessary. Within the framework of this article, a focus on Jordan's faith, upbringing, education, and political ethics will demonstrate that these were major contributors to her success as a political icon and spokesperson. Jordan, who can be termed a pacesetter, was numbered among the few who brought to Congress a practical mind, integrity, dedication to duty, and the courage and voice to challenge the system in the interest of better government. (5) Noted lawyer, legislator, scholar, author, and presidential advisor, she was extremely gifted and used all of her talents and skills to address, improve, and dignify the conditions of human life.

In the tradition of Frederick Douglas, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Thurgood Marshall, Jordan challenged the federal government and the American people to uphold the principles set forth in the American Constitution. (6) This same Constitution, which was used to uphold the divisive caste systems of classism, sexism, and racism through the Jim Crow and Plessy v. Ferguson laws of "Separate but Equal," (7) would be used later by Jordan during the impeachment of an American president. Jordan, a born leader from a once segregated South, would be the voice who reminded the nation of the principles in the Constitution that encompassed all people regardless of race, class, creed, or color.

The Birth and Formation of a Leader

Born February 21, 1936, in Houston, Texas, Jordan was the third child of Arlyne Patten Jordan and Benjamin Jordan. She was delivered by Thelma Patten, the first African American doctor in Houston, who was also a family cousin. Born at home, it was befitting that the first hands to touch her also held strong ties to education and hard work, an ethic that Jordan embraced throughout her life. (8)

Reared with her sisters, Rose Mary and Bennie, Jordan and her family, which included paternal grandfather Charles and his wife Alice, lived in a two-bedroom house in Houston's segregated district, the Fifth Ward. The Good Hope Missionary Baptist Church was the focus of their lives. (9) Good Hope was affiliated with the National Baptist Convention (NBC), a loose confederation of the African American Baptist churches. Jordan's mother, Arlyne Jordan, a former church orator, had grown up in Good Hope, and her step mother-in-law, Alice, was the pastor's daughter and a school teacher. Jordan's grandfather, Charles, a truck driver, was a church deacon. Jordan's father, Benjamin, a Tuskegee man and warehouse laborer, sang in the choir and accepted his call to preach at the Good Hope Church. The Jordan sisters would later sing there as a gospel trio, and Jordan would recite poetry using one of her major God-given talents--her voice.

Living amidst a family with a religious and pious nature, Jordan found the ritualistic forms of Bible study and church too strict. Choosing not to follow the family to church on Sunday evenings, young Jordan followed in the footsteps of her maternal grandfather, John Ed Patten, whose sustaining excellence on morality and justice would be a reigning factor in her life, but who was a former minister who no longer attended church.

In 1919, Patten had been imprisoned for shooting a white policeman in self-defense. After his release, he reentered the world of shopkeeping in various venues but eventually found his niche in the junk business, traveling around Houston in a mule-drawn wagon. Patten's courage, independence, and ability to make something out of nothing were an inspiration to Jordan. She helped him sort rags and scrap iron on Sundays, which the two of them sold to Houston merchants. (10) Because the junk business was such a lucrative venture, Grandpa Patten shared his earnings with his granddaughter and provided her with a money belt and an acumen for capital. Not wanting her to be like other children, Patten told her, "You just trot your own horse and don't get into the same rut as everyone else." (11) He often wrote pithy proverbs and Bible phrases on the tin and cardboard fence surrounding his junkyard, penning it with his assumed signature, St. John. (12) Patten had a favorite maxim, which he taught Jordan and which was from his personal life lessons that he called the "Gospel according to St. John": "Just remember the world is not a playground, but a schoolroom. Life is not a holiday, but an education. One eternal lesson for us all: to teach us how better we should love." (13)

Patten read to Jordan from the dictionary, from books of poetry, and from the King James Bible. His talks on the life of Christ on Sunday nights helped her understand Jesus and God better than any teachings from the church. He taught her to follow Jesus' standards, to do what Jesus said, and to follow the plan of action that Jesus set for her. By doing so, he told her, she would be moving in the path of following Christ. Patten's interpretation of the message of Jesus was: "Don't get sidetracked and be like everybody else. Do what you are going to do on the basis of your own ingenuity. You cannot trust the world and others, so you have to figure things out for yourself. But you have to love humanity, even if you can't trust them." (14)

Patten offered his granddaughter mantras to live by, and he gave her money and meat, rare commodities for a poor child-then and today; a God who did not say bend your knee and wait for a better day; autonomy that said do not take a boss; the choice to stay single and never marry; and a guarantee that he would always be there when she needed him. Patten talked to her as a teacher to a student, as a guide to a traveler, as an aging man to a young gift, and his words of wisdom became the foundation, the cornerstone, of her life. Until his death in the late 1950s, Patten remained her key supporter, encouraging her always to follow her heart. (15)

Jordan's formative years had been heavily influenced by Grandpa Patten but were also thoroughly influenced by the greater Jordan clan. In 1945, at the age often, Jordan decided she was "tired of being a sinner," and she joined Good Hope Missionary Baptist Church as a full-fledged member. In 1947, her father announced his call to preach, and in 1949, he became the full-time pastor of Greater Pleasant Hill Baptist Church. Always strict and an advocate of high standards, self-discipline, and dignity at home, church, and school, Ben Jordan's mandate for excellence also became a mantle of self-control for his daughter throughout her academic and political career. (16)

Training Ground for a God-Given Talent

In Houston during the late nineteenth century, blacks inadvertently spurred the creation of new economic and cultural life in the growing black communities. Numerous black-owned and operated businesses of all kinds and churches could be found throughout the city. Some all-black churches had existed prior to emancipation, but the freedom to worship without interference of whites created a passionate outpouring of religious activity in the 1870s. During this period, the two most active Protestant denominations in the South were the Baptists and the Methodists. The church proved to be the only institution after the Civil War that could be totally and independently operated without white support. Churches became places of worship, social centers, informal places of learning, health clinics, and food pantries. (17)

By the early 1900s, blacks in Houston, Texas, were politically disenfranchised. The use of the poll tax in 1903 eliminated most African American voting, as did the gerrymandering of election districts and the imposition of literacy and property requirements for voting. The new segregation laws cut African Americans off from white social, political, and economic activity in the cities across America, but Although the segregated South in the nineteenth century was not favorable to African Americans, some blacks with fairer skin who could pass for white lived a dual lifestyle--black one day and white for life. Even in the black population, blacks with lighter skin tones were more favorable than those whose skin was darker. When Jordan was born, her father asked, "Why is she so dark?" Skin color in American life was central to perception and purpose. (18) With clarity and perception, Jordan learned this lesson early in life:

   The world had decided that we were all Negro, but that some of us
   were more Negro than others. The whole system at that time was
   saying to us that you achieved more, you went further, you had a
   better chance, you got the awards, if you were not black-black with
   kinky hair. Black was bad and you didn't want to be black, and so
   the message we were getting was that you were really in tough shape
   and it was too bad that you were so unfortunate that your skin was
   totally black and there was no light there anywhere. (19)

The imposition of segregation was unfavorable to Jordan, and she felt it was too enormous for anyone to ever change. This fatalistic kind of acceptance had become the norm among blacks, more so after the Supreme Court, in 1950, declined to reconsider the fifty-three-year-old doctrine of "separate but equal" established in Plessy v. Ferguson. (20) Because of segregation, Jordan attended all-black schools and remained one of the top students in elementary school and at Phyllis Wheatley High School. (21) Amidst racial discrimination and wearing her dark skin proudly, Jordan used her education to further her ambition. She decided she was going to be outstanding or different in relation to other black people. While many of her classmates aspired to be school teachers, she determined that there were higher aspirations for women and for blacks, and she refused to settle for the traditional path her peers chose to accept. (22) Her dream became a reality when Edith Sampson, a black lawyer, came to Wheatley High School in 1950 for Career Day. Impressed by Sampson's success, the dye was cast. Jordan decided she too would one day become a lawyer. (23)

Before attending college, Jordan finished out her high school years with much acclaim. Using her God-given talents--her mind and voice--she began working toward being named the "Girl of the Year." Besides commendations and numerous firs-place awards received in church oration contests, she held three district and two state championship medals in junior and senior declamation oratorical competitions; was a member of the Wheatley Lovable Troubadours; was president of the Honor Society; and was named "Girl of the Year."

With these successes under her belt, Jordan enrolled in the new, all-black university, Texas Southern University (TSU). Four factors attributed to her decision to attend TSU: she was expected to attend college; the college had to be close to home due to money constraints; Prairie View College lacked appeal because she did not aspire to be a teacher or secretary; and due to segregation laws, she had to attend an all-black institution. (24)

In 1952, Jordan's time at TSU began with her losing the race for freshman president, pledging as a member of the Delta Sigma Theta sorority, and joining the debate team. Under the leadership of Tom Freeman, the debate team tested Jordan's oratorical skills, pitting her against her first white opponents, which gained the school national attention. In addition to honing her speaking skills, she developed her ability to conduct research and organize information. During her junior year at TSU, the Supreme Court struck down the myth of "separate but equal" in education by overturning Plessy v. Ferguson. The court finally agreed with Thurgood Marshall and the NAACP and issued a new decision, Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, which declared segregated schools to be unconstitutional. (25) Jordan's travels, her sense of specialness, and the furious reaction to Brown provoked her to look at the world differently. Her college activities and successes, including being the most popular student at her all-black college, serving as the yearbook editor and as an officer in her sorority, working as a student council member, winning debates and oratorical contests, no longer mattered to her. She realized that it was going to take more than the Supreme Court to end segregation, and she decided that if integration were ever to happen, someone had to push the process along in a private way. (26)

The Transition and Road to Future Successes

Graduating Magna Cum Laude from TSU and transcending the barriers of demarcation, Jordan enrolled at Boston University in 1956 to study law. Boston University was one of two universities in America that had been open to people of all races since being founded by a group of Methodist ministers in 1839, while slavery was still an entrenched national institution. (27) Despite this openness, Jordan was just one of two black women in a class of six hundred students. Living alone in Boston was isolating and overwhelming, and Jordan was forced to reflect on everything that she had taken for granted--her community, race, religion, family, and, most importantly, herself. Realizing the damage that segregation had caused her and her family helped Jordan to see the relationship of whites and blacks in terms of power. Segregation and Jim Crow laws existed only in a relationship between the strong and the weak, a relationship between two groups unequal in power and control. She began to see how everything in her life had been limited by demarcation. She had always measured herself against other black students but was now forced to measure her worth on a daily basis against students as ambitious as herself, but who held degrees from Harvard, Brown, Yale, Dartmouth, and other Ivy League schools. (28) Of this time, she wrote:

   I realized, starkly, that the best training available in an
   all-black, instant university was not equal. Separate was not equal,
   no matter what face you put on it. It came to me that you couldn't
   just say something was so, because somebody brighter, smarter, more
   thoughtful would come out and tell you it wasn't so. Then, if you
   still thought it was, you had to prove it. I really can't describe
   what that did to my insides and to my head. I said I'm being
   educated, finally. I'm doing sixteen years of remedial work
   in thinking. (29)

As her anxieties increased, Jordan found solace in chapel services at Boston University's religious center. Howard Thurman, dean of chapel services and professor of theology, delivered sermons in such a way that changed how Jordan thought about and experienced religion. She was able to free herself from her father's harsh interpretation of the scriptures and his narrow view about living the Christian life. She came to believe that it was not necessary to adhere to her father's ritualistic prohibitions--the "thou shall nots." She further understood God to be caring and that he wanted her to live right and treat other people right. The revelation of God's purpose in human lives was transformative for Jordan.

Graduated with her law degree in 1959, Jordan passed the Massachusetts bar exam. In the midst of all these successes, she struggled with her grief following Grandpa Patten's death. (30) She soon decided to return to Texas to open up her own law practice and left Boston with a new maturity--less oblivious to the world around her and having succeeded and proven herself in a white world. She also took with her a greater appreciation of her Baptist heritage.

In the fall of 1959, Jordan returned to a flourishing, but still racially-demarcated Houston. She passed the Texas bar that same year, opened up a law practice in her parents' house before finding a separate office later, and became the first African American to hold an administrative position for a Harris County judge.

By 1960, she had become bored with wills, trusts, and divorcees, and Jordan decided to sign up as a volunteer with the John F. Kennedy-Lyndon B. Johnson presidential campaign. (31) Once her oratorical skills were discovered, she was asked to speak to African American churches. Jordan, with great aplomb, began lecturing all over Houston, urging African Americans to register to vote and to support the Democratic ticket. In November 1960, Kennedy narrowly beat Nixon to become the thirty-fifth president of the United States. Enthused and energized by her involvement in politics, Jordan decided to make a move in that direction. (32) We could say the rest is history, but the fact is that Jordan went on to make history. Her historical accomplishments proved and embodied her conviction that circumstances of birth, race, or creed should not inhibit an individual from achieving greatness. (33) Her path created by God and influenced by Grandpa Patten, her parents, Good Hope Baptist Church, and Howard Thurman led her to greatness before a nation.

The Greatness of a God-Appointed Political Career

In 1962, Jordan entered the race for the Texas House of Representatives and lost. Two years later, she ran for the state legislature and lost again. Despite the two losses, Jordan was determined that politics was the most important thing to her and that she was following in the path God had created for her. (34) The "light at the end of the tunnel" began to shine in 1964 when the Civil Rights Act was passed and the Supreme Court required southern states to reapportion their electoral districts. (35) Houston was awarded ten new legislative seats, and one of those seats was created in the Eleventh District, where Jordan and many African Americans and Hispanics lived. In 1966, Jordan ran against a popular white liberal and won, making her the first African American elected to the Texas Senate since 1883.

During her six years in the Texas Senate, Jordan consistently advocated for the working class constituencies she represented. She helped defeat a sales tax that would unfairly burden the poor; funded programs for citizens to help fight hate crimes; sponsored a bill establishing the Texas Fair Employment Practices Commission; supported legislation to improve workers' compensation; developed the state's first minimum wage law; chaired the state's senate Labor and Management Committee; served as vice chairperson of the Legislative, Congressional, and Judicial Committee; and was a member of the Youth Affairs Committee. Even though Jordan met with racism and sexism during her tenure in the senate, her colleagues came to the realization that this African American woman was an intelligent, articulate, and serious lawmaker, and at the end of her first term, they passed a resolution commending her contributions. (36)

In 1972, Jordan was named Governor for a Day by the Texas Senate and was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, where she would become a member of the Judiciary Committee and would win national recognition for her moving indictment of President Richard R. Nixon during the Watergate hearings. (37) On January 3, 1973, Jordan was sworn in as a member of the Ninety-Third Congress, becoming the first representative from the newly created Eighteenth Congressional District of Texas and the first black Texan in the United States Congress. (38) In 1974, on national television, millions of Americans watched as Jordan delivered an impassioned speech on impeachment and the Constitution. Her moral clarity and defined patriotism were evident:

   Earlier today we heard the beginning of the Preamble to the
   Constitution of the United States, "We, the People." It is a very
   eloquent beginning. But when that document was completed on the 17th
   of September, 1787, I was not included in that "We, the People." I
   felt somehow for many years that George Washington and Alexander
   Hamilton must have left me out by mistake. But through the process
   of amendment, interpretation, and court decision, I have finally
   been included in "We the People." (39)

Nixon was eventually impeached, and Jordan cried.

Two years later, Jordan claimed another significant first. She delivered the keynote address at the 1976 Democratic Party Convention, the first black woman to do so in the 144-year history of the organization. Her historic speech launched her into the ranks of the political elite. She asked and answered the question, "Are we to be one people bound together by a common spirit, sharing a common endeavor, or will we become a divided nation?" "A spirit of harmony will survive in America," she said, "only if each of us remembers that we share a common destiny." (40) Although Jordan agreed with the separation of church and state, her speeches addressed and embraced the responsibility and role of the Christian and church in a democratic society--a common ground. (41)

Jordan ended her political career in December 1977, choosing her next career path in academics. She accepted a post at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas in Austin, Texas, stating that she wanted to help train future leaders of the nation and to bring the government back to the people. When Jordan retired from politics in 1979, she put term limits in action long before they were part of the political climate. (42)

Following retirement from political life, Jordan continued to contribute to the American political sphere. In 1993, she was appointed to chair the U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform by President Bill Clinton, who in 1994, awarded her the highest civilian honor--the Presidential Medal of Honor. (43) On December 30, 1995, as a final measure of her lifelong commitment to Good Hope Missionary Baptist Church, Jordan agreed to serve as Honorary Chair of the Hope for Families, Inc., which was dedicated to rebuilding the community by rebuilding families through innovative and creative programs designed to address the holistic needs of people in the greater Houston area. (44)

In spite of Jordan's many achievements and accolades, she never forgot her heritage of excellence, accountability, and morality. She never forgot that God had a path for her to follow. A fellow congressman once said that what Jordan had was not something you learn and develop; it was something that God had given her, and it was something that could not be described, although many had tried. (45)

Conclusion

Jordan's faith was a mainstay in her public and private life. For her, public religion and politics were necessary partners in the effort to sustain a free society, and religion was a sacred realm that pervades daily life. It was the connective tissue for wholeness and well-being. She believed that there was an inherent mutuality between religion and culture and contended there was no radical disjuncture between the sacred and the secular, the political and the moral. (46) Jordan defined morality as adherence to the Golden Rule, and she lived by the moral code of "do unto others as you would have them do unto you." (47)

Jordan was a natural-born world shaker who stood up for the underdog and constantly opposed prejudice against race, religion, or sexual orientation. She became a voice and a force for change and ultimately emerged to greatness. (48) The power of her rhetoric drew support from all sectors of society with many groups wanting to claim her as their own. (49) She died on January 17, 1996, at the age of fifty-nine and was buried at the State Cemetery in Austin, Texas, near the grave of Stephen Austin, the "Father of Texas." Her burial site was her final first in the series of firsts achieved in her lifetime, for it is purported that she was the first black to be buried in the Texas State Cemetery. (50)

Barbara Jordan was a twenty-first-century political icon whose Baptist heritage shaped her for the future and gave her the foundation to become one of God's greatest gifts to humankind. She helped create a better world for "We, the People," but she also "showed us how better we should love."

(1.) Brian Lanker, I Dream a World: Portraits of Black Women Who Changed America, 2nd ed., ed. Yvonne Easton (New York: Stewart, Taboti & Chang, 1989), 35.

(2.) Barbara Boxer, "Life of Barbara Jordan," Congressional Record, Senate, January 22, 1996, $282: 1. See http://frwebgate2.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/waisgate.cgi?WAISdoc ID=05889222380+2+0+0&WAISaction=retrieve, accessed May 17, 2006.

(3.) Barbara Carlisle Bigelow, ed. Contemporary Black Biography: Profiles from the International Community, vol. 4 (Detroit: Gale Research, Inc., 1993), 137.

(4.) A. Holmes, A Private Woman in Public Spaces: Barbara Jordan's Speeches, On Ethics, Public Religion, and Law (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2000), vii.

(5.) Hope Chamberlin, A Minority of Members: Women in the U.S. Congress (New York: Praeger Publishers, 1973), 4.

(6.) Shelia Jackson-Lee, "Tribute to the Late Hon. Barbara, Jordan," Congressional Record, House, January 24, 1996, H822-H829: 2. See http://frwebgate2.access.gpo.gov/ cgi-in/waisgate.cgi?WAISdocID=05889222380+0+0+0&WAISaction=retrieve, accessed May 17, 2006. Frederick Douglass (1817?-1895) was the most prominent African American orator, journalist, and antislavery leader of the nineteenth century. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968), Baptist clergyman and Nobel Prize winner, was one of the principal leaders of the American Civil Rights movement. Thurgood Marshall (1908-1993) was the first black justice on the Supreme Court of the United States.

(7.) "Jim Crow" was the practice of discriminating against black people, especially by operating systems of public segregation. "Separate but Equal" was segregation in the United States and was the legal or social practice of separating people on the basis of their race or ethnicity. "Plessy vs. Ferguson," a landmark case ruled on by the United States Supreme Court in 1896, upheld the legality of racial segregation.

(8.) Diane Patrick-Wexler, Barbara Jordan: Lawmaker, Teacher, Political Leader, Contemporary African Americans (Orlando, FL: Steck-Vaughn Publishers: 1996), 8.

(9.) Roanne Edwards, "Barbara Charline Jordan," Africana: The Encyclopedia of The African and American Experience, eds. Kwame Anthony Appiah, Henry Louis Gates, Jr. (New York: Basic Civitas Books, 1999), 1067.

(10.) Ibid.

(11.) Barbara Jordan and Shelby Hearon, Barbara Jordan: A Self Portrait (New York: Doubleday, 1979), 6-7.

(12.) Holmes, A Private Woman, 12.

(13.) Jordan and Hearon, Barbara Jordan, 9-10.

(14.) Ibid., 10.

(15.) Ibid., 22-23. See also Edwards, "Barbara Charline Jordan," 1067.

(16.) Rose Blue and Corinne Naden, Barbara Jordan, ed. Nathan I. Huggins (Danbury, Co: Chelsea House Publishers, 1990), 24-25.

(17.) Mary Beth Rogers, Barbara Jordan: American Hero (New York: Bantam Books, 1998), 13-14.

(18.) Jordan and Hearon, Barbara Jordan, 22; Rogers, Barbara Jordan, xviii. "Passing" in the United States was the phenomenon of African Americans, who in physical appearance approach the 'white" racial type and who choose to live and identify themselves, whether temporarily, or permanently, as white. See Africana: The Encyclopedia of The African and American Experience, 1500.

(19.) Jordan and Hearon, Barbara Jordan, 62.

(20.) Ibid., 50.

(21.) Patrick-Wexler, Barbara Jordan, 17. Phyllis Wheatley High School was named for a famous African poet.

(22.) Jordan and Hearon, Barbara Jordan, 61-63.

(23.) Blue and Naden, Barbara Jordan, 33-34. Edith Sampson was a black lawyer, future judge, and the first woman of any race to earn a law degree from Loyola University.

(24.) Jordan and Hearon, Barbara Jordan, 63-72.

(25.) Rogers, Barbara Jordan, 45-57.

(26.) Ibid., 58.

(27.) Ibid., 60.

(28.) Ibid.

(29.) Jordan and Hearon, Barbara Jordan, 73.

(30.) Rogers, Barbara Jordan 68.

(31.) Ibid., 74-78.

(32.) Laura S. Jeffrey, Barbara Jordan: Congresswoman, Lawyer, Educator, African American Biographies (Berkeley Heights, NJ: Enslow Publishers, Inc., 1997), 27-32.

(33.) Nancy Conn Terjesen, "Barbara Jordan," The African American Encyclopedia," 2nd ed. (2001): 5:1414.

(34.) Jeffrey, Barbara Jordan, 33.

(35.) Edwards, "Barbara Charline Jordan," 1067.

(36.) Ibid., 41-42.

(37.) Edwards, "Barbara Charline Jordan," 1067.

(38.) Sandra Parham, ed. Barbara C. Jordan: Selected Speeches (Washington, DC: Howard University Press, 1999), xi.

(39.) Ibid., xii. Rogers, Barbara Jordan, 214.

(40.) See http://www.meadloffreedom.com/BarbaraJordan.htm, accessed May 17, 2006.

(41.) Barbara A. Holmes, "Barbara Jordan's Speeches 1974-1995: Ethics, Public Religion and Jurisprudence" (Ph.D. diss., Vanderbilt University, 1998), 159.

(42.) Austin Teutsch, Barbara Jordan: The Biography, ed. Harry Preston (n.p.: Golden Touch Press, 1997), 11.

(43.) Parham, Barbara C. Jordan, xii-xiii.

(44.) See http://www.bjscholars.org/Barbara%20Jordan%20Bio.htm, accessed May 17, 2006.

(45.) Jessie Carney Smith, ed. Notable Black American Women Women (Detroit: Gale Research, Inc., 1992), 609.

(46.) Holmes, "Barbara Jordan's Speeches," 138-39.

(47.) Lanker, I Dream a World, 35.

(48.) Teutsch, Barbara Jordan, 13, 29.

(49.) Holmes, A Private Woman, 23.

(50.) Parham, Barbara C. Jordan, xiii.

Bonnie J. Oliver graduated from Candler School of Theology, Emory University, in 2005 with an Master of Divinity degree. She is currently an Master of Arts in Religion student at Memphis Theological Seminary, Memphis, Tennessee.