She Changed the Nation, page 26
Reading a discussion of circulating “unclean” rumors that threatened to undermine Jordan’s candidacy in the Black press one week before the election made all of her supporters extremely concerned. Jake Johnson, who served in the state legislature from Houston, recalled how the campaign blamed the Graves campaign for the scuttlebutt about Jordan being a lesbian. He recalled thinking, “What do we do about this? We didn’t talk to her about it.” He had worked with her as an advisor, and had put her in touch with Don Ritchie, an advertising executive who helped come up with her slogan, “The Sensible Choice.” Johnson decided that Jordan’s campaign should place a half-page ad in the Houston Chronicle. The advertisement showed photos of Jordan side by side with her three Black male opponents. Under her photo was a long list of her accomplishments as a legislator; under Graves’s photo, one line. Under Booker Bonner’s, the simple statement: “No legislative experience.”67
Jordan clearly took Graves’s challenge seriously. Her opponent had the support of many Black professionals and students. His campaign literature listed prominent individuals in the Third Ward who supported him, including former school board member Hattie Mae White and the Rev. Bill Lawson from the Third Ward. Graves also benefited from the neutrality of the Forward Times, which refused to endorse either candidate.68 But Graves’s campaign seemed underpowered. One newspaper reported on the eerie quiet at the campaign headquarters: “The girls leave for an early lunch. Two young male volunteers who come and go during the day are absent. For about an hour the headquarters is unmanned except by Graves himself.” Joanne Graves—young, attractive, fashionable, and absolutely supportive of her husband—worked full time on his campaign. “She wears an orange slacks outfit and a gold peace sign on a gold chain necklace.” Graves himself radiated confidence. At 6 feet, 4 inches, he was an imposing figure. The father of three children and a practicing Catholic, Graves dressed impeccably, always in a shirt and tie. He could command an audience, and his criticisms of Jordan were meant to reflect the feelings of the times. In many ways he and his supportive spouse epitomized the spirit of Black male militancy. Yet this dynamic young couple gained little support in the Fifth Ward.69
One newspaper account contrasted the bustling activity at Jordan’s headquarters with the deadly quiet at Graves’s. At Jordan’s office, “a group of seven women walk in. . . . ‘Hi Good to see you ladies, How you doing?’ They go straight to work stuffing envelopes.”70 Political scientist Fenno singled out George Nelson, the owner of Temple barbershop, attendee of the 1941 NAACP meeting, and 1972 Jordan fundraiser, to make a point: “He’s the source of her strength: black, independent, loyal, elderly, and community minded.”71 Jordan depended on the support of local businesses, especially barbers and beauticians. According to Harrison, “Beauticians loved Barbara! They came in, they supported Barbara, they contributed money, they [took] her material putting it [on display] . . . talking about what a nice woman Barbara Jordan was. You depend on those women to go out and gossip.”72 Jordan’s support in the community ran deep, particularly among those who led the institutions where Black people gathered.
Tellingly, Jordan was one of the few candidates to whom Black ministers willingly surrendered their pulpits. During the campaign against Graves, Jordan said, “I speak in a church every chance I get. I’ve been averaging five each Sunday—in and out.”73 Instead of feeling threatened by Jordan, ministers sought to gain prestige by associating with her. She spread a message that made Black voters feel needed, but also positive and victorious. Judge Andrew Jefferson recalled the adulation: “I remember one year when I was running, it may have been 1972, we were on the campaign trail together. On Sundays we’d go to as many churches as you could go to. Other politicians would have hands full of placards and biographical materials and working the crowd and bowing and scraping. And there was Barbara above it all. People all ran to touch her. She was just worshipped. That’s all you can say about it.”74
On Election Day, Black voters got their chance to make history by sending the first Black woman from the South to congress. Overwhelming popular support for Jordan meant that African Americans all over Houston stood in lines for hours just for the opportunity to vote. Because the Eighteenth Congressional District was newly drawn, many Jordan supporters from her old senate district could not cast a vote for their candidate in this election. According to the Forward Times, “Several times, precinct judges in sectors of the city outside the 18th congressional district had to use public announcement systems or megaphones to tell waiting masses that the senator was not on the ballot in that particular district.” They stayed in line, but still felt robbed of their chance to be part of something bigger than themselves. According to one observer, “The shoulders of black men and women drooped when they did not have a chance to vote for Jordan.”75 Jordan beat Graves by a landslide, capturing 80 percent of the vote.
The analysis of the Forward Times focused on Jordan’s gender as the key factor: “Women from churches and social clubs . . . rallied strongly for Jordan, rationalizing that a woman—in this age of liberation—is just as good as a man, and besides, Senator Jordan outwardly just happens to be their idol, their vision of what a successful woman should be like.”76 Black women came out for Jordan, worked for her, protected her, and defended her because she represented both Black resistance and what Black women could achieve. “I love her for her ambition,” said one of her supporters. Jordan’s quest for higher office reflected their own desires to be seen and heard and to win.77
Graves, soundly defeated, moved to Washington, DC, to work for the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. He and Jordan never spoke again, and Houston lost a Black leader. Yet his allegation that Jordan got her congressional seat by “trading” her senate seat never went away. And the suspicion that she was not what she appeared to be continued to be commonly expressed in liberal circles, in much the same way that it was claimed, falsely, that Jordan voted against the corporate tax to gain Ben Barnes’s support for her congressional seat. Almost a year after Jordan’s death, journalist Molly Ivins rejuvenated the story of how “she traded some public suck-up with the Texas Democratic establishment—Lyndon Johnson and Ben Barnes—and got the first black congressional district drawn in Texas. Smart trade.”78
Jordan had testified that she thought the new lines violated the “community of interest,” but after that did not vigorously denounce the redrawing of the district lines, accepting it as an inevitable consequence of economic powers greater than herself. She told Fenno that “there was some racism involved, but it was mostly economic. The big corporations, the oil and gas and insurance companies were afraid because this year the Texas senate came within one vote of passing a corporation tax—a tax on their big profits. So these big men, these big businesses were so frightened, they decided to redistrict the senate to make it more conservative. The reason was money, the green folding stuff. That’s why blacks got redistricted out of a seat in the senate.”79 In economic conflicts among whites, Blacks would lose.
With Jordan going to Congress, the senators and Lieutenant Governor Barnes clearly did not want Graves in their midst, and they redrew the lines of the Eleventh Senate district to keep him out. Max Sherman observed that conservative Sen. J. P. (James Powell) Word gave up his seat so that the new districts could be drawn to ensure that outcome. Babe Schwartz thought that no matter what Jordan said or did, her liberal seat was going to go: “Barbara laid down on the senate redistricting in terms of Harris County and in that sense acceded to the establishment’s demands—that they have their way in Harris County. But I’ll tell you something else. The establishment had its way in Harris County in the redistricting anyhow. I’m not sure there was anything to give up and I don’t say this because I’m trying to protect Barbara Jordan. She doesn’t need my protection. But the establishment drew the Harris County senate district lines.”80 When Jordan went to Washington, she made her own priorities. But any representative of Houston’s Eighteenth Congressional district had to deal with Houston’s business interests, and once she went to Washington, Jordan faced that pressure.81
The conservative reaction against Graves shows how powerful and discerning the Black vote in Houston was becoming. Sissy Farenthold’s bid for the Texas governorship during the same 1971–1972 election cycle also illustrates the growing power of the Democratic Coalition. Farenthold was not especially well known to Houston’s Black voters, and some regarded her with suspicion. True, she was an outspoken progressive who had worked among the poor in Corpus Christi as a legal advocate, but she also was a wealthy white woman with an elite education. Democratic organizer Billie Carr recalled, “We were having trouble with the Black woman not wanting to support her. I got a group [of black women] together and asked them, we’re not getting support from black women for Sissy, why not? What’s the problem? And one of them said, ‘OK I’m going to tell you, Billie, she reminds us of every woman we’ve ever done days work for.’”82 But Farenthold was helped in her campaigning by her ally in the Texas House, Curtis Graves. According to the Forward Times, they were like a hand in glove, appearing everywhere together.83 His support galvanized Farenthold’s campaign in the Black community. Black voters may have supported Jordan over Graves in the congressional race, but they still liked much of what he said and stood for.
Black support for Farenthold over Ben Barnes indicated that Black voters wanted to throw out the old guard, and so they joined forces with other liberals hoping to do just that. Farenthold was associated with what journalist Molly Ivins dubbed “moral purity” in her attacks against conservatives, and her time had come.84 Black voters in Houston overcame their suspicions of the wealthy woman lawyer from Corpus Christi and turned decisively against candidates associated with the conservative wing of the Democratic Party. Farenthold epitomized public disgust with corruption and politics as usual. The backlash against the Sharpstown scandal, the food tax, and the general corruption in both houses—many of the same issues that Graves drew attention to—worked in Farenthold’s favor. In a four-way race for governor, she earned 28 percent of the vote overall and 90 percent of the Black vote. She beat Ben Barnes and ended up in a runoff for the governor’s seat with Dolph Briscoe, the largest landowner in Texas. Though she lost in the runoff, she received 45 percent of the final vote. For an “urbane, Catholic feminist who advocated easing of abortion laws” to win such favor, it was clear that a large portion of the Texas electorate, especially Black voters, were ready for new faces in government and an end to control by the lobby.85 Curtis Graves lost his own race, but by campaigning with Farenthold, he contributed to the defeat of Ben Barnes.
Although her feminism was not always made explicit in Jordan’s campaign speeches, her 1972 candidacy chimed with the social changes sweeping through the nation. Jordan’s victory and Farenthold’s strong showing prompted the Forward Times to declare that “WOMEN ARE TOO TOUGH.”86 What few appreciated, however, was the toughness, dedication, and expertise of Jordan’s staff. It is impossible to imagine her overwhelming victory over Graves without Guild, Harrison, and Laine. It was their work that sent Jordan to Congress, but, like many women who worked in the civil rights movement, they were behind the scenes. The depth of homophobia met by the campaign perhaps explains why Jordan never referred to any of these women in her memoirs, and why they fail to appear in any other treatment of Jordan’s life. Their contributions to her success, however, cannot be overstated.
Jordan’s constituents had embraced her because of her womanhood, not in spite of it. Black working women—proud of Jordan and eager to see a Black woman elected—worked tirelessly in Jordan’s campaign office and as block workers to get out the vote and defend her against personal attacks. In addition, her calm, decisive approach to political power, her thoughtful campaign strategy, her dedicated staff, and her ability to draw on a wide range of Houston institutions and connections all contributed to give Jordan the winning edge. But her congressional victory would always be tainted by the loss of her senate seat. It was a reminder, if she needed one, of the power of the establishment.
CHAPTER 9
A Father’s Death, A Black Woman’s Ambition
I leave this word with you. It doth not yet appear what we shall be.
—1 John 3, as stated by Barbara Jordan, “Governor for a Day” ceremony, 1972
On June 10, 1972, shortly after she defeated Curtis Graves in the congressional primary, and six months before she took up her new position in the House of Representatives in Washington, DC, Barbara Jordan served as “Governor for a Day” in Austin. Tradition called for an esteemed member of the senate to assume the top executive’s duties while the Texas governor and lieutenant governor exited the state, and Jordan’s peers had chosen her for the honor. Her good friend Judge Andrew Jefferson administered the oath of office while the overwhelmingly Black audience cheered and clapped inside the Texas Senate chamber. Jordan remains the first and only Black woman in the United States to act as governor of any state, and national newspapers, including the New York Times, reported on the day’s ceremony.1
Jordan kicked off the festivities with a speech: “Anyone out there know about Fifth Ward?” The audience, her people, the hundreds of Houston supporters who had taken busses to the state capitol that morning to be with her, responded loudly and affirmatively. “There is no one who could have predicted that this would be our day, but it’s ours,” she told them. Celebrating a Black woman in power was only the start. “I want you to make a new commitment today that the state of Texas will not tolerate differences on the basis of race anymore.”2 She asked her audience to choose love over hate, and justice over injustice. She repeated her call—“I want you to make a new commitment today”—several times, and then asked those present to look into their hearts and see whether “it was humanly possible for them to love their fellow man.” Jordan’s political speeches usually focused on issues: voting, the minimum wage, or consumer taxes. She acted as “a fence mender, fire extinguisher, or pep leader.”3 But in this four-minute extemporaneous address, she asked her audience to embrace larger ideals. “I want you to make a new commitment today,” she urged, for peace, for justice, and for love.4
Then Jordan invited Black youth from the poorest areas of Houston onto the grounds to display their talents. Jazz bands and choirs from Texas Southern University and Fifth Ward high schools and junior high schools performed in the rotunda throughout the day. The capitol’s walls displayed exhibits by Black artists. Black student marching bands paraded, more choirs sang, and hundreds of visitors enjoyed a barbecue lunch. Inside, Jordan met with visiting Black politicians, including Rep. Charles Rangel from New York, and had her picture taken with her sorority sisters and other well-wishers. White attorneys, including Leon Jaworski, president of the Texas Bar Association, politicians, and business executives showed up to speak and bestow gifts. They may have been surprised to notice the Confederate flag missing from the capitol’s pole and to hear Jordan proclaim September as “Sickle Cell Disease Control Month” in Texas. “The young kids were doing the bugaloo on the capitol steps and there were some more speeches, and everybody was just having fun and getting pretty exhausted,” she recalled.5 The open, joyful display of Black culture on the capitol grounds, along with the recognition paid to the experiences of Black Texans, symbolized her race’s growing presence in state politics. “You came here to have a happening and we’ve had it,” she said with obvious pleasure.
But then she resumed her serious tone. In her closing remarks at the day’s end, Jordan took up the theme of how politicians—backed by voters—had the power to transform ideals into reality: “I want you to stand behind me and help me move this country, stand behind me and help me move this state.” She emphasized that individuals had to change their old ways of thinking: “I want you to stand with me so that we can sing that anthem ‘We Shall Overcome’ and mean it. I want us to be able to say black and white together and mean it.” She claimed the mantle of both King and Johnson: “I want us to be able to translate all of the rhetoric of our time, the promise, the dream, into truth and fact.” She offered herself as proof that there was room for Black people to rise and insisted that young Black Texans in despair should still dream. Fittingly, her peroration used Biblical language to express hope. “I leave this word with you. It doth not yet appear what we shall be.”6
Figure 7. Barbara Jordan and her parents, 1972. MSS 0080 PH007, Houston Public Library, African American History Research Center, Houston, TX.
No one could have been happier or prouder that day than Jordan’s father, Benjamin. This ambitious and exacting man had once dreamed of leading either a business or his own church. When those enterprises stalled, he supported his youngest daughter’s foray into the law and then politics, fully expecting she would become someone special in Houston. She had done that and more. Now she was on her way to Congress in Washington, DC, the first Black woman from the South ever to do so. Jordan’s father stood on the stage in a white suit with a red carnation, celebrating the family’s triumph. He had not been well. The upsetting attacks levied against his daughter during the bitter primary battle with Graves exacerbated his heart condition. He had been advised to stay home that day, but he refused. He wanted to witness this pinnacle moment of his daughter’s career, and as she delivered her speech, he cried for the last time. Shortly after the swearing-in ceremony ended, Benjamin Jordan suffered a stroke and was taken to a local hospital.
Later in the day, Jordan joined him. “He had the most wonderful expression on his face,” she remembered, “the most wonderful smile imaginable.” Jordan went back to the capitol to continue with the day’s events while her mother remained at her husband’s side. When the evening came, the governor-for-a-day took her limousine back to the hospital to visit, and then returned for that evening’s celebratory concert featuring Novella Nelson, a Black singer known for her extraordinary renditions of Blues and gospel music. Jordan wore a striking long-sleeved, black-and-white dress with a geometrical pattern at the neckline that set off her face and a skirt that swept the ground, emphasizing her height. She joined an audience of two hundred and fifty selected guests, friends, and family who were still celebrating her day as governor with a concert by Nelson. Jordan thought that her father was stable and resting comfortably, but at the end of the evening she learned that he had sunk into a coma.
