ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, January 18, 1996 TAG: 9601180082
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
TYPE: NEWS OBIT
SOURCE: FRED BRUNING NEWSDAY NOTE: Above
WE HAVE A KIND OF PERFECTION in us, because of "our founding principle," the teacher and orator said just last month. That ideal guided Barbara Jordan's life of service.
With a voice that had the timbre of a trumpet and enunciation that would shame many network newscasters, former U.S. Rep. Barbara Jordan spent a quarter-century summoning her country - and her political party - to loftier standards of racial justice and common decency.
The job wasn't complete when Jordan, 59, died Wednesday in Austin, Texas, of viral pneumonia, but she defended the constitutional process as unfailingly in her last days as she did while serving on the House Judiciary Committee during the tumultuous Watergate period.
Deliberating on whether to impeach President Nixon in 1974, Jordan, a freshman Democrat, asserted with characteristic gusto before a national TV audience: ``My faith in the Constitution is whole. It is complete. It is total. And I am not going to sit here and be an idle spectator to the diminution, the subversion, the destruction of the Constitution.''
Although she was ill with multiple sclerosis and the leukemia that precipitated her death, Jordan echoed similar enthusiasm last month at a congressional hearing on immigration. ``I would be the last person to claim that our nation is perfect,'' said Jordan, who served on the U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform. ``But we have a kind of perfection in us because our founding principle is universal: that we are all created equal.''
Said an official at the commission Wednesday: ``She went out on a high note.''
For Barbara Charline Jordan, the first black elected to Congress from the South since Reconstruction, less soaring melodies were from somebody else's song.
She was born Feb. 21, 1936, the daughter of a Houston preacher and his wife. As a child, she helped her grandfather in his junk business but was expected to earn A's at school - a demand she met consistently.
At Texas Southern University in Houston, Jordan met Thomas Freeman, renowned coach of the school's debating team. ``She succeeded because of her willingness to work and not allow any obstacles to stand in the way,'' said Freeman, 75, whose diction is strikingly reminiscent of Jordan's. ``She once said she would never forgive me for inflicting on her a pattern of speaking that she could never abandon,'' he joked.
Jordan graduated with honors and studied law at Boston University. She returned to Texas and worked for the Democratic Party in Houston. One night, a speaker at a political event failed to arrive, and Jordan volunteered.
``Once they got a look at her they never let her go,'' said Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y. ``She became their shining light.''
Former Rep. Caldwell Butler of Roanoke, who arrived in Congress the same year as Jordan, served with her on the Judiciary Committee. "She was gracious, firm, a tough adversary in debate, but not unfair," Butler said. "She had very strong opinions, mostly in the civil rights area, but not unreasonably held. I don't know anybody didn't respect her even when they disagreed." Rangel, Jordan's colleague on the Judiciary Committee, recalled that Washington politicians also wanted to claim Jordan for their own. In the end, he said, ``Barbara Jordan belonged to the world.''
After two unsuccessful bids for state office, Jordan won a state senate seat in 1966. Despite the segregationist sentiment that then prevailed, Jordan joined other senators for an outing and managed to get the contingent singing ``We Shall Overcome.''
She co-sponsored the state's first minimum-wage bill and a workers' compensation act. She led the opposition to a proposal that would have tinkered with voter registration requirements to the disadvantage of minorities.
Word of her achievements reached Washington, and President Johnson invited Jordan to the White House for an advance look at his landmark 1967 civil rights message.
As a delegate to the 1968 Democratic convention, Jordan supported Johnson's Vietnam War plank although she had misgivings. Johnson repaid her loyalty by helping raise funds for Jordan's successful run for the U.S. House of Representatives in 1972.
In Washington, Jordan's work on the House Judiciary Committee gave her national exposure, but she didn't have the hunger of a career politician. ``The longer you stay in Congress, the harder it is to leave,'' she said in 1977. ``I didn't want to wake up one fine sunny morning and say there is nothing else that Barbara Jordan can do.''
That scenario was far from the case. Jordan joined the faculty of the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas in 1979 and became known as a dedicated teacher and champion of students - a person Lady Bird Johnson, the president's widow, described Wednesday as a ``personification of dignity'' and ``force for good.''
LENGTH: Medium: 92 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: File/1992. Barbara Jordan delivers her keynote addressby CNBto the 1992 Democratic convention. color.