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IN MEMORIAM
BARBARA JORDAN
Teaching by deed as well as by
word, Barbara Jordan has dramatically articulated an enduring standard
of morality in American politics. Guided by an unshakable faith
in the Constitution, she insists that it is the sacred duty of those
who hold power to govern ethically and to preserve the rule of law.
As the first African American woman elected to the Texas State Senate,
her conspicuous abilities led her to the United States Congress,
where her brilliant oratory and meticulous judgement earned our
lasting respect. She continues her life’s work as a teacher,
explaining and analyzing complex issues of moral responsibility
in politics and imbuing the leaders of tomorrow with the ability
to follow her formidable lead.
– Citation by President
Clinton in awarding the Presidential Medal of Freedom
to Barbara Jordan, August 1994.
Barbara Jordan, who died in Austin
on January 17, 1996, at the age of 59, was a member of the faculty of
The University of Texas for 17 years. Accepting a professorship in the
LBJ School of Public Affairs after three terms in Congress, she brought
with her a national reputation as an advocate for the highest standards
in public service. The vigor with which she had pursued her electoral
career was channeled smoothly into her announced intention to become
a "first rate professor." She succeeded abundantly.
There was little in the immediate
background of Barbara Jordan to suggest the contours of her career.
Houston’s Fifth Ward, where she was born on February 21, 1936,
offered scant support for an ambitious African American child–except
for a grandfather who believed in her potential. Nonetheless, she graduated
with honors from Texas Southern University and subsequently earned an
LLB from Boston University. The private practice of law, however, was
not to be her career, although respect for the law suffused every aspect
of her life. The rule of law, especially as exemplified in the Constitution
of the United States, was the bedrock of her public service, her teaching,
and her impact on her many students.
Public Service
The raw materials of Barbara Jordan’s
career tell some of the story: a member of the Texas Senate from 1966
to 1972; the first Black Texan to be elected to Congress, where she
served from 1972 to 1978; appointed to various legislative committees
at both the state and national levels, notably including the House Judiciary
Committee during the Watergate Hearings of 1974 (where television first
introduced her to a nationwide audience); the first Black woman to keynote
a Democratic convention (1976); post-1979 appointments to an array of
panels, boards, and commissions. Too many awards to count, too many
honors to list.
The theme that tied together the
multiple public service activities of Barbara Jordan was her conviction
that government could be a force for good, that public servants operate
under a constitutional mandate to implement effectively (and ethically)
the public will. The rhetoric with which she defended public life at
its best, and the voice that elevated that rhetoric, left indelible
traces on her colleagues and on those who heard her on television and
radio. Lyndon Johnson understood her impact as early as 1971 when he
said, ". . . her reputation as a political leader has exceeded
the boundaries of Texas. She is known nationally as a leader who is
concerned for the rights, the hopes, the dreams and aspirations of all
the people."
In her 1998 biography, Barbara
Jordan: American Hero, Mary Beth Rogers emphasized that what to
many seemed a career of steady success was actually a life punctuated
by difficulties. Defeated in her first run for the legislature, encountering
blatant racism in the Texas Senate of the 1960s, and somewhat alone
in her years in Congress, Barbara Jordan, a very private woman, transcended
these and her many physical disabilities without complaint, without
self-pity. She understood the game of politics and played it well, explaining
to her colleagues and later to her students that a public servant has
a "moral imperative to be effective." Both as an active public
servant and as a teacher, she became symbolic of what good public service
can mean.
Teaching
It was wholly appropriate that Barbara
Jordan should hold the Lyndon B. Johnson Centennial Chair in National
Policy at the LBJ School. When she died, she was about to teach, once
again, a seminar on "Political Values and Ethics." A paragraph
from the spring 1996 syllabus describing that course indicates its scope.
Under our system of government we
choose a representative we tell him/her to govern. This system of
selection does not guarantee that the assignment is understood.
The citizenry (and frequently the politician as well) is unclear
about the assignment and sometimes confuse representation and governing.
As the ethical principles are sorted out, this course will focus
on the difference between governing and representing and whether
the values, choices, and ethics vary with the nature of the assignment.
In short, B. J. (as generations
of her students called her) was in the business of training public servants,
public administrators, public citizens, and–as she also hoped–holders
of high elective offices. To her there was a continuum between a school
of public policy and the world into which the graduates of such a school
would shortly move. Although her career as a teacher lasted only 17
years, B. J. lived long enough to rejoice in seeing her former students
become city managers, state officials, and highly-placed federal employees.
Her devotion to teaching was repaid many times over by the continued
loyalty of those who were fortunate enough to take her classes–loyalty
both to their teacher and to her passionately held convictions.
As a teacher, Barbara Jordan did
not cease to operate when she was beyond the Forty Acres. Daughter of
a Baptist minister, she used many secular pulpits. Constantly in demand
for speeches, conferences, board memberships, and media appearances,
she selected the places where she thought she would be most useful–such
as becoming the ethics "czar" for a Texas governor or cochairing
the U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform. There is reason to believe
she could have received several high national appointments during her
years in Austin, had she encouraged those who respected and admired
her.
The Jordan Legacy
Barbara Jordan enjoyed life: she loved
barbecue and basketball, could sing "Frankie and Johnnie"
with gusto, was fond of money but didn’t like to spend it, had
a great talent for friendship, and was a practical joker. These facets
of her character, however, were largely unknown to those who looked
up to her as mentor and legend. What people heard was her message which,
although eloquently varied, steadily emphasized the theme of governance,
the essential tie between ethics and democratic effectiveness, and the
need for continued support of basic constitutional principles. As the
years passed, requests for her presence on platforms, on letterheads,
on commissions continued. Public statements, interviews, a coedited
book, The Great Society, among other things, kept her in the
public eye. As an array of illnesses afflicted her and she became wheelchair
bound, her mobility was inevitably sharply diminished, but the clarity
of her thought–not at all.
When she died one month short of a 60th
birthday celebration that she would have (ruefully) enjoyed, Barbara
Jordan had, in short, become emblematic–for Americans of all races,
and, to a lesser extent, to audiences abroad. Behind her lay the barriers
she had surmounted. The images that she had imprinted on so many minds
persist, and the sound of her voice proclaiming the value of loyalty
in an age of disloyalty–loyalty to country, to the art of politics,
to this university, and in essence to all human beings.
After her death, Barbara Jordan’s
students created an annual "Barbara Jordan Memorial Forum on Diversity
in Public Policy" at the LBJ School. Mary Beth Rogers’ insightful
biography and many articles and media features have testified to her
enduring importance. She has been the subject of a play, "E Pluribus
Unum: Barbara Jordan–One Voice," written by Deborah Hamilton-Lynne
and starring Franchelle Stewart Dorn.
Tributes to Barbara Jordan have
ranged from the eulogies at memorial services delivered by President
Clinton, Bill Moyers, and others who knew her well, to letters written
by men and women, African Americans, Anglos, Hispanics, and others,
who knew her only from afar. Their theme remains essentially the same:
B. J. was a unique human being who, through her life, changed and bettered
the world around her.
But Barbara Jordan herself should have
the last word (in fact she would have wanted it). At the Democratic
National Convention in 1976 she said:
"This is the great danger
that America faces. That we will cease to be one nation and become
instead a collection of interest groups: city against suburb, region
against region, individual against individual. . . . If that happens,
who then will speak for America? . . . who then will speak for the
common good?"
<signed>
Larry R. Faulkner,
President
The University of Texas at Austin
<signed>
John R. Durbin, Secretary
The General Faculty
This tribute by Professor Elspeth Rostow appeared in somewhat different
form in the "1996 Eulogies" of the National Academy of
Public Administration, of which Barbara Jordan was a Fellow.
Link
to the Handbook of Texas Online.
Link
to the Edie and Lew Wasserman Public Affairs Library
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