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JORDAN, Barbara (b. 1936)

Political PartyDemocrat
Political ServiceTexas Senate

Oral Histories

OH 0113

Attorney, member of the Texas Senate from Houston, Democrat. Her experiences in the Sixty-first Legislature as its first African-American member since Reconstruction. Kennedy-Johnson Campaign, 1960; her unsuccessful campaigns for the Texas House of Representatives in 1962 and 1964; her successful campaign for the Texas Senate as its first African-American member since 1883; civil rights; comments about Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, Roy Wilkins, Ralph Abernathy, Adam Clayton Powell, Muhammed Ali (Cassius Clay), Stokely Carmichael, Black Panthers, Eldridge Cleaver; the African-American Image; working within the Establishment; revenue and spending bills; comments about Governor Preston Smith and Lieutenant Governor Ben Barnes; corporate profits tax; social legislation; student unrest; sales tax.