Post AwEd88jmiIReb6gXMu by Deglassco@mastodon.social
(DIR) More posts by Deglassco@mastodon.social
(DIR) Post #AwEd7tjwTQes5Fdx20 by Deglassco@mastodon.social
2025-07-17T19:33:36Z
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Barbara Jordan—a Black woman from Houston’s Fifth Ward—crossed every line drawn to keep her out: the color line, the gender line, the sexuality line, the Mason-Dixon line. And when, 49 years ago this week, the nation asked who would speak for America in crisis, she answered. With conviction. With the Constitution. And with a voice they never forgot. 1/ 20 #history #politics #histodons #blackandwhite#photography #blackmastodon Image: Barbara Jordan DNC keynote speech, NYC, July 12, 1976. AP.
(DIR) Post #AwEd7uuy5v4XjjoGrA by Deglassco@mastodon.social
2025-07-17T19:35:24Z
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There were many lines Barbara Jordan had crossed by the time she rose to speak on July 12, 1976—lines others had drawn to keep her out: the color line, the gender line, the Mason-Dixon line. But none of those lines were visible in that moment. Not to the cameras in Madison Square Garden. Not to the delegates on the convention floor. They heard only the voice.2/20Video: Barbara Jordan DNC Keynote Speech, Madison Square Garden , from July 12 to July 15, 1976, Pt. 1.https://youtu.be/Bg7gLIx__-k?si=_jdDQ8REDPvZ7Ce-
(DIR) Post #AwEd7vockzakWLqibg by Deglassco@mastodon.social
2025-07-17T19:37:28Z
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It was not the voice of youth. It was the voice of authority. Deep. Slow. Composed. It did not rise in pitch but in weight. Every sentence moved with a deliberate cadence, until the room itself leaned toward her.“We are a people in a quandary about the present,” she said. “We are a people in search of our future.”It was not a question. It was a diagnosis.3/20Video: Barbara Jordan DNC Keynote Speech, Madison Square Garden , from July 12 to July 15, 1976, Pt. 2.https://youtu.be/2YvxjfoOJLw?si=9XZsnWgxto9VWFlN
(DIR) Post #AwEd7wgVWeh3DT3kau by Deglassco@mastodon.social
2025-07-17T19:38:48Z
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Her presence there had not been foretold. The script had not been written for a Black woman to keynote the Democratic National Convention. It had never happened. But Barbara Jordan had made it impossible not to ask. And when they asked, she answered.4/20Image: Sleet, Moneta, Jr. Barbara Jordan and Andrew Young, photograph, 1967, accessed July 16, 2025),University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, Texas Southern University.
(DIR) Post #AwEd7xWGQE5rnzH5Ga by Deglassco@mastodon.social
2025-07-17T19:45:56Z
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She did not come from wealth or from whiteness or from access. She came from Houston’s Fifth Ward. From a neighborhood where houses leaned, where fences sagged, and where the most reliable currency was the sound of your own word.5/20Image: Young Barbara Jordan with her sisters. L to R: Barbara Jordan, Rose Mary McGowan, Bennie Craswell, c. 1950-1960s (African American Library at the Gregory School).
(DIR) Post #AwEd7y7qAW9RgWr5pw by Deglassco@mastodon.social
2025-07-17T19:50:32Z
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The first time she heard that sound shaped into law, it came from another Black woman—Edith Sampson, a visiting attorney. Sampson stood before Jordan’s high school class and told them: the law was a tool. It could be used. Even by someone like her.6/20Image: Edith S. Sampson, Library of Congress, Photograph by Carl Van Vechten, April 6, 1949.
(DIR) Post #AwEd7ynJgJKPlAGDU8 by Deglassco@mastodon.social
2025-07-17T19:51:58Z
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Jordan listened. And then she pursued.But the line was already there. She could not attend the University of Texas—because she was Black. So the state built a separate school: Texas Southern University. No campus. No history. No budget.7/20Image: Barbara Jordan at Texas Southern University, photograph, accessed July 14, 2025),University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, Texas Southern University.
(DIR) Post #AwEd7zc0dpsUINyhV2 by Deglassco@mastodon.social
2025-07-17T19:53:44Z
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They built it because they had to. She made it matter because she chose to.On its debate team, she traveled north. She faced Harvard. She tied them.9/20Image: Texas Southern University Oratorical Debate Team], photograph, July 1952, accessed July 14, 2025),University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, Texas Southern University.
(DIR) Post #AwEd80EILUVED7tHAu by Deglassco@mastodon.social
2025-07-17T19:55:18Z
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Then: Boston University Law School. Magna cum laude. Return to Houston. A modest law office. A growing reputation—earned not by name, but by labor. By 1972, she became the first Black woman from the South elected to Congress.10/20Image: Ballington and Maud Booth Award: Barbara Jordan Awarded], photograph, 1975~; accessed July 14, 2025),University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, crediting Texas Southern University.
(DIR) Post #AwEd80pA8Pze3T8idk by Deglassco@mastodon.social
2025-07-17T19:55:57Z
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And four years later, she stood at the podium, beneath the lights, and asked:“If we cease to be one nation, who then will speak for America?”The answer, that night, was clear.She would. 11/20Video: Barbara Jordan Oral history interview March 28, 1984. LBJ library.https://youtu.be/y5iWyv-FeyM?si=G4sK9akxqnLvb9B5
(DIR) Post #AwEd81PJxyutrc3b04 by Deglassco@mastodon.social
2025-07-17T19:56:46Z
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But the arc was not uninterrupted.Two years before, in 1974, she spoke during the House Judiciary hearings on Watergate. Quiet. Resolute. Rooted in the Constitution. No bluster. No theater. She did not ask for applause—only for accountability.12/20Video: Barbara Jordan speech at Nixon impeachment inquiry.https://youtu.be/UG6xMglSMdk?si=ltqGBJppAkp_yLfF
(DIR) Post #AwEd81zTnXq9fkyTMO by Deglassco@mastodon.social
2025-07-17T19:57:32Z
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Still, even as her stature grew, her body betrayed her. Multiple sclerosis weakened her legs. She left Congress in 1979—not because her mind dimmed, but because her body refused.And still, when the party asked her to speak again in 1992, she did—this time in a wheelchair.13/20Video: Barbara Jordan 1992 speech at the Democratic convention.https://youtu.be/ADDsKGs6Gr4?si=C8dDRD0xYj9C0qDt
(DIR) Post #AwEd82jv0szFzmhYkC by Deglassco@mastodon.social
2025-07-17T19:59:03Z
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That speech echoed too. Softer now. The fire remained, but the frame had shifted. MS. Leukemia. And something deeper—exhaustion. The exhaustion of having carried not just a career, but a nation’s conscience.14/20Image: Barbara Jordan, Oct 18, 1976 (Lyndon Baines Johnson Presidential Library).
(DIR) Post #AwEd83XY2MgaThvC6K by Deglassco@mastodon.social
2025-07-17T20:00:28Z
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Statues stand now. At the University of Texas, where she had once been barred. At the Austin airport, where many pass without knowing.But she knew.“I wanted to be a citizen,” she once said.And in 1976, she reminded America what that meant—not by heritage, but by will.And though many forgot the details, they remembered the voice.Because she had crossed the line.And she had spoken for the common good.15/20Image: Barbara Jordan as a young woman. Source: Office of the Clerk, U.S. House.
(DIR) Post #AwEd88jmiIReb6gXMu by Deglassco@mastodon.social
2025-07-17T20:01:40Z
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Primary Sources:“Barbara Jordan Family Collection,” Houston Public Library Archives and Manuscripts, repository description, accessed July 13, 2025, https://hplarchives.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/3/resources/371/.U.S. National Archives. “The Keynote Speaker: An Exhibition of Congresswoman Barbara Jordan.” Google Arts & Culture, n.d. Accessed July 13, 2025. https://artsandculture.google.com/story/hQWhiqn7ZKMwvw.U.S. National Archives. “Barbara Jordan Congressional Records,” National Archives Catalog. Accessed July 13, 2025. https://catalog.archives.gov/search?q=%22SIL!ppl%2Fbcj%22.16/20
(DIR) Post #AwEd8EKTvHlnwMtPlI by Deglassco@mastodon.social
2025-07-17T20:02:07Z
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More Sources Digital Scholarship @ TSU. BJA. Texas Southern University. Accessed July 16, 2025. https://digitalscholarship.tsu.edu/bja/.University of North Texas Libraries. The Barbara C. Jordan Archives. The Portal to Texas History. Accessed July 16, 2025. https://texashistory.unt.edu/explore/collections/BCJA/. 17/20
(DIR) Post #AwEd8JilsPAcf9INoe by Deglassco@mastodon.social
2025-07-17T20:02:54Z
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Secondary Sources Max Sherman. Barbara Jordan: Speaking the Truth with Eloquent Thunder. Louann Atkins Temple Women & Culture Series. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2007.Mary Ellen Curtin. She Changed the Nation: Barbara Jordan’s Life and Legacy in Black and White. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2024.Harry Preston Austin. Barbara Jordan: The Biography. Austin, TX: Golden Touch Press, 1997.18/20
(DIR) Post #AwEd8PFDLD5nnDVrZw by Deglassco@mastodon.social
2025-07-17T20:03:40Z
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More Secondary Sources Barbara Jordan and Shelby Hearon. Barbara Jordan: A Self‑Portrait. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1979.Barbara Jordan, edited by Max Sherman. Speaking the Truth with Eloquent Thunder. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2007.National Archives. “The Keynote Speaker – Congresswoman Barbara Jordan.” Rediscovering Black History (blog), June 22, 2022. https://rediscovering-black-history.blogs.archives.gov/2022/06/22/the-keynote-speaker-congresswoman-barbara-jordan/. Accessed July 12, 2025.19/20