Barbara Jordan was born in Houston. She received a bachelor’s degree from Texas Southern University in 1956 and a law degree from Boston University in 1959. She practiced law in Houston from 1959 to 1967. In 1966 Jordan was elected to the Texas Senate, becoming the first African American state senator in Texas since 1883. In 1972 Jordan was named president pro tempore of the Texas Senate. Later that year she was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. Jordan earned national attention for a compelling speech calling for the impeachment of President Richard Nixon after the Watergate scandal. In 1976 she delivered the keynote address at the Democratic National Convention. In 1979, after her political career was cut short by illness, she became a professor at the University of Texas at Austin. Jordan died in Austin in 1996.
