Barbara Jordan Quotes

Barbara Charline Jordan was an American lawyer, educator and politician who was a leader of the Civil Rights Movement. A Democrat, she was the first African American elected to the Texas Senate after Reconstruction and the first Southern African-American woman elected to the United States House of Representatives. She was best known for her eloquent opening statement at the House Judiciary Committee hearings during the impeachment process against Richard Nixon, and as the first African-American as well as the first woman to deliver a keynote address at a Democratic National Convention. She received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, among numerous other honors. She was a member of the Peabody Awards Board of Jurors from 1978 to 1980. She was the first African-American woman to be buried in the Texas State Cemetery.Jordan's work as chair of the U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform, which recommended reducing legal immigration by about one-third, is frequently cited by American immigration restrictionists. Wikipedia  

✵ 21. February 1936 – 17. January 1996
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Barbara Jordan: 9 quotes0 likes

Famous Barbara Jordan Quotes

“My faith in the Constitution is whole; it is complete; it is total. I am not going to sit here and be an idle spectator to the diminution, the subversion, the destruction of the Constitution.”

Barbara Jordan

Statement before the House Judiciary Committee considering impeachment of President Richard M. Nixon (25 July 1974). (See External links)

“What people want is simple. They want an America as good as its promise.”

Barbara Jordan

Commencement Address, Harvard University (16 June 1977), as cited in Let me tell you what I've learned https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/0292787901: Texas Wisewomen Speak, PJ Pierce, University of Texas Press (2010), p. 16

“You need a core inside you—a core that directs everything you do. You confer with it for guidance. It is not negotiable.”

Barbara Jordan

Scott Williams, “Jordan Praises Stockman,” Daily Texan (23 November 1981), as cited in Let me tell you what I've learned https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/0292787901: Texas Wisewomen Speak, PJ Pierce, University of Texas Press (2010), p. 17

“Those who hold the public trust must adhere to the highest ethical standards there are. The job requires it, and the public must demand it.”

Barbara Jordan

Remarks at the University of Texas at Austin (22 February 1991), as cited in Let me tell you what I've learned https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/0292787901: Texas Wisewomen Speak, PJ Pierce, University of Texas Press (2010), p. 17

“It was immigration that taught us, it does not matter where you came from, or who your parents were. What counts is who you are.”

Barbara Jordan

Speaking as chair of the U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform. Quoted by Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas) speaking before the U.S. House of Representatives “Tribute to the Late Hon. Barbara Jordan,” Congressional Record (24 January 1996), as cited in Let me tell you what I've learned https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/0292787901: Texas Wisewomen Speak, PJ Pierce, University of Texas Press (2010), p. 17

“This country can ill afford to continue to function using less than half of its human resources, less than half its kinetic energy, less than half its brain power.”

Barbara Jordan

Keynote address, Democratic National Convention (13 July 1992). (see External links)

“There is no obstacle in the path of young people who are poor or members of minority groups that hard work and preparation cannot cure.”

Barbara Jordan

As quoted in Wisdom For the Soul of Black Folk https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/0977339157, ed. Larry Chang & Roderick Terry, Gnosophia Publishers (2007), p. 117

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