ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, January 19, 1996 TAG: 9601190049
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-10 EDITION: METRO
THAT VOICE.
That voice held the nation rapt, demanded of America to remember its principles, commanded it to live by them.
That voice spoke with such moral clarity that it resonated across the country almost two decades after the speaker left the national stage.
That voice could sway powerbrokers in Washington, D.C., from a wheelchair in a classroom in Austin, Texas.
That voice is stilled by death, the only force that could keep Barbara Jordan from speaking the truth, as she understood it.
Jordan, who died Wednesday at 59, had a brief, brilliant political career. She was a shooting star, the congresswoman from the Lone Star state, burning her convictions into the minds of Americans in 1974 as the House Judiciary Committee debated the impeachment of President Nixon.
"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." It was devastating political theater, and it was no act.
That voice. A black woman, the daughter of a Baptist minister from a poor neighborhood in Texas, at once damned a corrupted nation and lifted it up, testifying - by her words and her presence - that its ideals were real and alive.
Jordan left Congress after only six years. She was considered, at various times, a possible vice presidential candidate, ambassador to the United Nations, Texas governor or senator. She would have made a great Supreme Court justice.
But, slowed by multiple sclerosis, she retired from politics with dignity and devoted herself to teaching and to her students at the University of Texas, where she set tough ethical standards and tried to infuse younger generations with her passion for justice.
America should not let the voice of the gentle lady from Texas fade away. The question she asked at the Democratic National Convention in 1976 is as pressing today: "Are we to be one people bound together by a common spirit, sharing in a common endeavor, or will we become a divided nation: region vs. region; city vs. suburb; interest group against interest group; and neighbor against neighbor?"
We await the distant thunder of a reply.
LENGTH: Short : 49 linesby CNB