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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.
#photography #BlackAndWhite #politics #history #BlackMastodon #histodons
Dr. D. Elisabeth Glassco
Dr. D. Elisabeth Glassco  
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Those lines others had drawn to keep her out were visible in that moment in July. Not to the cameras in Madison Square Garden. But not to the delegates on the convention floor. They heard only the voice.
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Video: Barbara Jordan DNC Keynote Speech, Madison Square Garden , from July 12 to July 15, 1976, Pt. 1.

https://youtu.be/Bg7gLIx__-k?si=_jdDQ8REDPvZ7Ce-


Barbara Jordan, Democratic National Convention Keynote Speech, 1976, part 1

Part one of Barbara Jordan's historic Democratic National Convention keynote speech in 1976. Jordan made history by being the first African American woman t...
YouTube
This entry was edited (1 day ago)
Dr. D. Elisabeth Glassco
Dr. D. Elisabeth Glassco  
•

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.
3/20
Video: Barbara Jordan DNC Keynote Speech, Madison Square Garden , from July 12 to July 15, 1976, Pt. 2.

https://youtu.be/2YvxjfoOJLw?si=9XZsnWgxto9VWFlN


Barbara Jordan, Democratic National Convention Keynote Speech, 1976, part 2

Part two of Barbara Jordan's historic Democratic National Convention keynote speech in 1976. Jordan made history by being the first African American woman t...
YouTube
Dr. D. Elisabeth Glassco
Dr. D. Elisabeth Glassco  
•
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.
4/20
Image: 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.
This entry was edited (1 day ago)
Dr. D. Elisabeth Glassco
Dr. D. Elisabeth Glassco  
•
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.
5/20
Image: 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).
This entry was edited (1 day ago)
Dr. D. Elisabeth Glassco
Dr. D. Elisabeth Glassco  
•
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.
6/20
Image: Edith S. Sampson, Library of Congress, Photograph by Carl Van Vechten, April 6, 1949.
Dr. D. Elisabeth Glassco
Dr. D. Elisabeth Glassco  
•
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.
7/20
Image: Barbara Jordan at Texas Southern University, photograph, accessed July 14, 2025),University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, Texas Southern University.
This entry was edited (1 day ago)
Dr. D. Elisabeth Glassco
Dr. D. Elisabeth Glassco  
•
The South built that university 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.
9/20
Image: 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.
This entry was edited (1 day ago)
Dr. D. Elisabeth Glassco
Dr. D. Elisabeth Glassco  
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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.
10/20
Image: 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.
Dr. D. Elisabeth Glassco
Dr. D. Elisabeth Glassco  
•
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.
11/20
Video: Barbara Jordan Oral history interview March 28, 1984. LBJ library.
https://youtu.be/y5iWyv-FeyM?si=G4sK9akxqnLvb9B5

Barbara Jordan Oral History Interview I, 3/28/84.

Audio, Barbara Jordan Oral History Interview I, 3/28/84, by Roland C. Hayes, Internet Copy, LBJ Library. Public domain. Transcript and deed details available...
YouTube
Dr. D. Elisabeth Glassco
Dr. D. Elisabeth Glassco  
•
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.
12/20
Video: Barbara Jordan speech at Nixon impeachment inquiry.
https://youtu.be/UG6xMglSMdk?si=ltqGBJppAkp_yLfF

B Jordan impeachment speech

The caption that says 1971 is a typo. The speech was given in 1974.
YouTube
Dr. D. Elisabeth Glassco
Dr. D. Elisabeth Glassco  
•
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.
13/20
Video: Barbara Jordan 1992 speech at the Democratic convention.
https://youtu.be/ADDsKGs6Gr4?si=C8dDRD0xYj9C0qDt

Barbara Jordan speaks at the 1992 Democratic Convention

Barbara Jordan speaks at the 1992 Democratic Convention in New York, NY.Subscribed to our channel for more.
YouTube
Dr. D. Elisabeth Glassco
Dr. D. Elisabeth Glassco  
•
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.
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Image: Barbara Jordan, Oct 18, 1976 (Lyndon Baines Johnson Presidential Library).
Dr. D. Elisabeth Glassco
Dr. D. Elisabeth Glassco  
•
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.
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Image: Barbara Jordan as a young woman. Source: Office of the Clerk, U.S. House.
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