Buried Treasures: the Barbara Jordan Archives: Black History Month 2013

About Barbara Jordan

When Jordan was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1972 she became the first African-American woman to represent a previously Confederate state in Congress. In 1976 Barbara Jordan became the first African-American Woman to deliver a keynote address at a political convention, and Jordan addressed the Democratic National Convention again in 1992—to date, Jordan is the only person to have delivered the keynote address at the DNC twice. As a member of the House Judiciary Committee, Jordan was in the national spotlight during the Watergate hearings that would eventually lead to the resignation of President Nixon. Her style of oration and clarity of vision on the issues made her potential as a presidential candidate a topic of conversation among liberals. In 1994 she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom the nation's highest civilian honor. Despite her declining health she continued to teach and serve in public office including a post on the Presidential task force on immigration reform. Jordan died of pneumonia on January 17, 1996 at the Austin Diagnostic Medical Center. Jordan was eulogized by both President Clinton and former Texas Governor Ann Richards. On January 20, 1996, Barbara Jordan was buried at the Texas State Cemetery which is an honor reserved for Texas heroes. She is believed to be the first African-American to have been buried there.

Friday, February 1, 2013

Black History Month 2013

This years's theme for Black History Month is "At the Crossroads of Freedom and Equality: The Emancipation Proclamation and the March on Washington." 2013 marks the 150th anniversary of both the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation by President Abraham Lincoln, and the 50th anniversary of the historic "March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom." The Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH) developed this year's theme with the idea that these two events, so many years apart, are connected and converge under the common threads of freedom, equality and justice.

TSU's Special Collections and the Barbara Jordan Archives have installed a few exhibits at the Robert J. Terry Library to celebrate Black History Month. Our exhibits (featuring books, documents, periodicals, newspaper articles and photographs from Special Collections) will remain on display through the month of February. Our main exhibit on the library's first floor features videos from the National Archives that discuss the role of the National Archives in preserving the history of both the Emancipation Proclamation and the March on Washington; one of the videos is a series of rarely-seen newsreel footage of the March, featuring music by Joan Baez and Marian Anderson, as well as footage of Dr. Martin Luther King's historic speech.

We invite you to stop by the library to see the exhibits. For those of you who cannot come in person but would like to see the videos from the National Archives, please visit the links below:

Preserving the Emancipation Proclamation

The March on Washington in Photographs

The March, part one

The March, part two

The March, part three