CBS Morning News; Barbara Jordan

That is the speech everyone remembers, and I sometimes wonder, do they not think that I have moved beyond that? Politics had its reward, and I was, I enjoyed my political life, I loved it, snowed down about it, and if I felt that I could have been increasingly effective in that job, I suppose I would have continued to do it, but politics is a long, long time to make any significant long-lasting difference. But suddenly one day there you were before the United States of America on television, speaking about the Constitution, calling for the impeachment of a president. I don't call that very inadequate, or very marginal, or very... Well, that was a large historical event. That was not a small thing to be engaged in.

If anything, it caused me to peek almost before I got into Congress, and there was not much that could follow that as an encore, and what do you do to follow up, participating in a matter of the impeachment of president, so that was big, that was very big. So at last, the Margaret Jordan's political career had many peeps. But there is something different about tonight, there is something special about tonight. What is different? What is special? I, Barbara Jordan, am a keynote speaker. Someone listing that mic to the first black of either sex to keynote a national political convention remarked, if God is a woman, she must sound like this. My presence here is one additional bit of evidence that the American dream need not forever

be deferred. This daughter of a Texas country preacher followed one dazzling political first with another, in a state where 25 years ago, blocks with first-class minds, were still considered second-class citizens. As a student, Barbara Jordan led the black Texas Southern University debating team to an unprecedented victory over Harvard. Once out in the world, she became the only woman among the good old boys who made up the closed club called the Texas State Senate. Then, as the first black woman elected from the deep south to the U.S. House of Representatives, wheeling and dealing like an old pro, she moved straight to the top of the Washington heap, her name on just about every short list for any job of consequence in democratic party circles. There seemed to be no stopping her, until abruptly one day in 1977, without warning, she

stopped herself, announcing she would not run for a fourth term in the House. I trust that there will be something for me to do with the rest of my life. I believe that I have a contribution to continue to make, and either the public or the private sector, but I am not—I don't have a hidden agenda. Today, Barbara Jordan is still talking about the Constitution, but she plays to smaller crowds. Who knows what the Knight Amendment Constitution says? She went home to Texas, where she teaches political ethics at the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas in Austin. At the time, there were widespread rumors that her health was the cause of her decision. She was limping up to podiums then, and now is almost totally chair-bound. She doesn't talk about the affliction that struck her, but she is frank about what caused her to give up the corridors of power for the classroom. Were you disillusioned?

In a certain extent, I suppose the answer to that question is yes. Politics in Washington gives you the sense of being a player on a very large stage with events which are moving fast, moving rapidly, and affecting you instantaneously, but the truth of the matter is, you really not. You just think that. I had no idea how lumber-sum, and cumbersome, the whole process, was to get just the stainiest little bit of a successful result. Ultimately, doesn't it matter, don't you have to believe it matters to be in politics? It does matter to be in politics, and I would be the last person to say that it does not matter. It does matter because you do make those little fingerprints and those little ways, and

you have those little chips on issues. They are some Jordan chips around, and I've seen them from time to time. But isn't that just embedded in the American process that we do not change very rapidly? We are incrementalist by nature. We are incrementalist being itch-by-inch. Hinch-by-inch. But nothing is slower than trying to form a young mind and waiting to see what the seeds turn out to be. That is a slow process, Bill. But you can see the light come on in the eyes of young people immediately. If you are doing anything, which causes a light to come on, which was not on before, you see that instantly, you've got to be able to look in that mirror and say, I am going

to be the best that I can be no matter what it takes. You can see that old sparkle in Jordan's eyes when she talks to her new constituents, kids like these students at Hofstra University in New York. I want to succeed as a citizen of the United States of America, and in order to do that, I've got to speak standard English, and I demand it of every black person in my class. Do you believe in yourself? Do you believe that you are powerful in your individuality and your personhood? That's what's necessary, and so if I had to single out one thing in the whole array of things, which I would like to see as the primary trait of black young people, that is, believe in yourself, believe in yourself.

Who touched you? Who said, Barbara, Jordan, you matter? I had a teacher in the, I remember very clearly in junior high school, she, she was concerned about what she perceived to be, a lack of self-confidence in me, and she, as I recall, sat me down opposite her desk, and she said, you have got a first-class mind. You don't know it, but you have, and if you don't develop that mind further, you're going to lose it, and I don't want to see that happen.

That has stayed with me for all time, for me that was a beginning of thinking differently about myself. My wife and I took our daughter to the state capital in Austin not long ago, and in the capital, in the pantheon of Texas heroes, there is a picture of Davey Crockett, who died in the Alamo, as a portrait of Sam Houston, the father of Texas along with Austin, there is a picture of Lyndon Baines Johnson, president of the United States from Texas, and there is a portrait in that pantheon of heroes of Barbara Jordan. No, as a Texan, you know that we are a proud people. We're also proud, and it was after my participation in the impeachment of Richard Nixon and how that played across the country, that the members of the Texas Senate sort of gather around

and say, that's how Barbara, you know, that's how Barbara kind of given it to the nation. And they were so proud, they said, we want to appear, we want her on these walls, because this is a signal event. Barbara, that's an amazing change from the time when we were both growing up in Texas, and black was black and white was white, and never the train would meet. Did you ever change, did you ever think it would happen in your life? I never thought that it would happen in my life, especially since I had lost two political races, I was about to say that Texas will never accept a black woman. But I thought the third time I ran, I said the third time has to be the charm.

Now this, it's either when it or out, it's going someplace else, but I did win the third one. How effective do you believe that we, as African-Americans, can't be a political process? In the past 20 years, the one thing which has changed most about the American people is their degree of tolerance, if you are politically inclined. You may be the President right face. So Barbara Jordan keeps planning the seeds. These are her kids, a whole generation of political understudies who could be running the country in the 21st century. I say to my students, you know, don't forget me when you leave here now, let me hear from you because I want to know, and I do want to know, and they let me know, and they are going out there doing things.

I'm Leslie Stahl, US Soviet talks and with optimism, a Soviet spokesman and congressman Jack Kent on Face the Nation today. This is CBS, now you can fly Quantis to Australia, New Zealand and Fiji, or for just 996 round trip.

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