Jordan achieved notoriety for delivering a powerful opening statement[5] at the House Judiciary Committee hearings during the impeachment process against Richard Nixon.

[8] Through her mother, Jordan was the great-granddaughter of Edward Patton, who was one of the last African American members of the Texas House of Representatives prior to disenfranchisement of Black Texans under Jim Crow.

[12] Jordan credited a speech she heard in her high school years by Edith S. Sampson with inspiring her to become an attorney.

[2] To start off her career, Jordan became the first Black woman to work as an administrative assistant to a county judge, Bill Elliott.

[2][14][15][16] Jordan began her work in politics in 1960 when she became a volunteer for the John F. Kennedy-Lyndon B. Johnson campaign, traveling to African American churches in Houston to encourage people to vote.

[18] In a speech at Rice University following the district's creation, but before her election, Jordan said, "For the first time in Texas, we are going to have legislators who represent people, not cattle.

One of the ways she accomplished this was by befriending Dorsey Hardeman, who was seen as the most powerful man in the body, and Lieutenant Governor Ben Barnes.

Some of her accomplishments include developing Texas' first minimum wage law[18] and funding programs to fight against hate crimes.

She received extensive support from former President Lyndon B. Johnson, who helped her secure a position on the House Judiciary Committee.

[24] In 1975, she was appointed by Carl Albert, then Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, to the Democratic Steering and Policy Committee.

In 1976, Jordan, mentioned as a possible running mate to Jimmy Carter of Georgia,[17] became instead the first African-American woman to deliver a keynote address at the Democratic National Convention.

[4] Other speakers included Rosalynn Carter, Betty Ford, Lady Bird Johnson, Bella Abzug, Audrey Colom, Claire Randall, Gerridee Wheeler, Cecilia Burciaga, Gloria Steinem, Lenore Hershey and Jean O'Leary.

[27] On July 25, 1974, Jordan delivered a 15-minute televised speech in front of the members of the U.S. House Judiciary Committee[28] during the hearings that were part of the impeachment process against Richard Nixon.

[28] Further, both conservatives and liberals liked Jordan because of her appeal to the American Dream and her positions on Watergate and the Voting Rights Act respectively.

[25] Jordan was chosen as a speaker because she was a Democratic member of the Judiciary Committee and made an impact with her remarks during the impeachment process of Nixon.

[33] At Madison Square Garden, where the convention was held, Jordan's address ended with a 5-minute standing ovation, and during her speech, the audience interrupted with applause 20 times.

The original version of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 included section 5, which required that changes to voting laws in certain jurisdictions were required to be reviewed by the Attorney General or the United States District Court, but this did not apply to Texas because the state was not included in the determined jurisdictions.

[34] The law changed to include Texas under the expanded version along with the requirement of bilingual ballots for areas where "more than five percent of the population" spoke a language other than English.

[23] Jordan retired from politics in 1978 due to poor health[18] and became an adjunct professor teaching at the University of Texas at Austin Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs.

[1] She was honored many times and was given over 20 honorary degrees from institutions across the country, including Harvard and Princeton, and was elected to the Texas and National Women's Halls of Fame.

The commission supported increasing enforcement against undocumented migrants and their employers, eliminating visa preferences for siblings and adult children of U.S. citizens, and ending unskilled immigration except for refugees and nuclear families.

The commission recommended that the United States reduce the number of refugees admitted annually to a floor of 50,000 (this level would be lifted during emergencies).

[40][41] While Jordan never publicly identified herself as lesbian or queer,[42][43][17] the U.S. National Archives has referred to her as the first LGBTQ+ woman to serve in the United States Congress.

[52] In the years following Jordan's passing, more African Americans would receive the honor of being buried in the Texas State Cemetery as well, including musical artists James Henry Cotton and Barbara Smith Conrad.

[66] The Kaiser Family Foundation operates the Barbara Jordan Health Policy Scholars, a fellowship designed for people of color who are college juniors, seniors, and recent graduates as a summer experience working in a congressional office.

The Barbara Jordan statue campaign was paid for by a student fee increase approved by the University of Texas Board of Regents.

[76] In 2000, the Jordan/Rustin Coalition (JRC) was created,[77] honoring Jordan and Bayard Rustin, a leader in the civil rights movement and close confidante of Martin Luther King Jr.

The organization mobilized gay and lesbian African Americans to aid in the passage of marriage equality in the state of California.

According to its website, "the mission [of the JRC] is to empower Black same-gender loving, lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender individuals and families in Greater Los Angeles, to promote equal marriage rights and to advocate for fair treatment of everyone without regard to race, sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression."

[78] Entitled Voice of Good Hope, Kristine Thatcher's biographical evocation of Jordan's life played in theaters from San Francisco to New York.