Plaid Ponderings: Thoughts of a Lezz

Barbara Charline Jordan was an American politician and a leader of the Civil Rights movement. She was the first African American elected to the Texas Senate after Reconstruction and the first southern black female elected to the United States House of Representatives. She received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, among numerous other honors. On her death she became the first African-American woman to be buried in the Texas State Cemetery.

Due to segregation, she did not attend The University of Texas at Austin and instead chose Texas Southern University, majoring in political science and history. Barbara was a national champion debater, defeating her opponents from such schools as Yale and Brown and tying Harvard University. She graduated magna cum laude in 1956. At Texas Southern University, she pledged Delta Sigma Theta sorority. She attended Boston University School of Law, graduating in 1959.

Jordan campaigned unsuccessfully in 1962 and 1964 for the Texas House of Representatives. Her persistence won her a seat in the Texas Senate in 1966, becoming the first African American state senator since 1883 and the first black woman to serve in that body. 

Re-elected to a full term in the Texas Senate in 1968, she served until 1972. She was the first African-American female to serve as president pro tem of the state senate and served one day, June 10, 1972, as acting governor of Texas.

In 1972, she was elected to Congress, the first woman to represent Texas in the House in her own right (the first woman from Texas, Lera Thomas, had been elected after the death of her husband, Albert Thomas). She received extensive support from former President Lyndon B. Johnson, who helped her secure a position on the House Judiciary Committee. In 1974, she made an influential, televised speech before the House Judiciary Committee supporting the impeachment of Richard Nixon, Johnson’s successor as President.

In 1976, Jordan, mentioned as a possible running mate to Jimmy Carter of Georgia, became instead the first African-American woman to deliver the keynote address at the Democratic National Convention. 

Her speech in New York that summer was ranked 5th in “Top 100 American Speeches of the 20th century” list and was considered by some historians to have been among the best convention keynote speeches in modern history.

Despite not being a candidate, Jordan received one delegate vote (0.03%) for President at the convention.

In 1973, Jordan began to suffer from multiple sclerosis. She had difficulty climbing stairs, and she started using a cane and eventually a wheelchair. She kept the state of her health out of the press so well that in the KUT radio documentary Rediscovering Barbara Jordan, President Bill Clinton stated that he wanted to nominate Jordan for the United States Supreme Court, but by the time he could do so, Jordan’s health problems prevented him from nominating her. Jordan later also suffered from leukemia.

Jordan’s partner of close to 30 years was Nancy Earl. Jordan met Earl, an educational psychologist who would become an occasional speech writer in addition to Jordan’s partner, on a camping trip in the late 1960s. Jordan never publicly acknowledged her sexual orientation, but in her obituary, the Houston Chronicle mentioned her long relationship with Earl. However, Jordan biographer Mary Beth Rogers, author of “Barbara Jordan: American Hero,” had not confirmed that the former congresswoman was a lesbian. After Jordan’s initial unsuccessful statewide races, advisers warned her to become more discreet and not bring any female partners on the campaign trail.

Jordan narrowly escaped death by drowning in July 1988 when Earl pulled her from their backyard swimming pool. Her death in 1996 was caused from complications of pneumonia.

Any of you gay ladies going???

    thispalekid replied to your chat: This just happened with my mother:

Wait, so is your mom the type of person that thinks you can just pray away the gay?

My mom is the kind of person that’s convinced I don’t know what I want and am just confused. 

“I honestly think that you’re confused.”

That’s the first thing that she told me after she said she accepted me.

Which I kinda don’t know if I fully believe to be honest. I think she still thinks something’s going to happen and then I’ll just magically not be a lesbian anymore. 

But yeah. She’s going to be waiting a hell of a long time because I waited 10 years myself for me to change. 

The only thing that changed was I no longer crushed on the Pink Power Ranger. 

Instead I crushed on Sara Ramirez or Sofia Vergara. So yeah. That change did happen.