Press "Enter" to skip to content

Posts tagged as “Barbara Jordan”

BHM: Good Black News Celebrates Barbara Jordan – Groundbreaking Congressmember, Lawyer, Professor and Orator

BHM: Good Black News Celebrates Barbara Jordan – Groundbreaking Congressmember, Lawyer, Professor and Orator

By goodblacknews on February 2, 2021

by Lori Lakin Hutcherson (@lakinhutcherson)

Barbara Jordan was born in 1936 in Houston, Texas to a teacher mother and Baptist preacher father. Jordan grew up to become the first African-American woman voted into the Texas Senate (1966-1972) and the first Black woman from the South elected to the U.S. House of Representatives (1972-1979).

Jordan is best known for her superlative oratory skills, in particular the U.S. Judiciary Committee speech she gave in Congress almost 46 years ago to the day supporting the impeachment of Richard Nixon, as well as the Keynote address she gave at the 1976 Democratic National Convention (the first Black woman to do so in the Convention’s 144-year history).

Jordan also was the first and (so far) only Black woman to serve as Governor (albeit for one day on June 10, 1972) of any state in America. While in Congress, Jordan supported the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977, legislation that required banks to lend and make services available to underserved poor and minority communities.

She also supported the renewal of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and expansion of it to cover “language minorities”; this expansion offered protection to Spanish-speaking Latinos in her home state of Texas even when opposed by the Texas Governor and Secretary of State. Jordan also authored an act that ended federal authorization of price fixing by manufacturers.

After retiring from politics in 1979, Jordan worked as a professor of Ethics at the University of Texas at Austin. Around this time, Jordan was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis and eventually had to get around via wheelchair, but that did not stop her from being an active scholar and public servant.

From 1994 until her death in 1996, Jordan chaired the U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform, which recommended limits on immigration while also acknowledging how immigration had strengthened and continued to strengthen America.

President Bill Clinton wanted to nominate Jordan to the U.S. Supreme Court, but her health issues (which soon also included leukemia) prevented him from nominating her.

I started reading up on Barbara Jordan a few years ago because I’d always heard about her “firsts” but didn’t really didn’t have a sense of who she was or what made her formidable.

Then I listened to and watched her speeches. My. Heavens. If you haven’t heard it before, you MUST HEAR HER VOICE.

Stacey Abrams Wins Georgia Democratic Primary for Governor, Makes History

By goodblacknews on May 22, 2018

GA Democratic gubernatorial nominees Stacey Abrams (AP Photo/John Bazemore)

by Alice Truong via qz.com
Stacey Abrams made American history on Tuesday (May 22) when she won the Democratic primary for governor in Georgia, making her the first black female gubernatorial candidate nominated by a major party.
If she pulls off a victory in November against the Republican nominee, who will be decided in a runoff in July, the former state House minority leader will have a number of firsts to her name: the first female governor in Georgia, the first black governor of the state, and the first black woman elected governor in the US.
(Though she was not elected, Barbara Jordan in 1972 briefly served as the first female and first black governor of Texas when governor Preston Smith and lieutenant governor Ben Barnes were both out of the state on the same day.)
Abrams, of course, still faces an uphill battle in the deep South, which hasn’t elected an African-American governor since reconstruction. As the New York Times points out, she’ll need strong turnout from black voters to stand a chance in November. In Georgia, non-Hispanic white voters comprise 53% of the population and have traditionally voted in strong numbers.
“Tonight’s victory was only the beginning,” said Abrams in a Facebook post. “The road to November will be long and tough, but the next step is one we take together.”

Source: https://qz.com/1285911/stacey-abramss-georgia-victory-puts-the-us-closer-to-its-first-black-female-governor/

Viola Davis’ JuVee Productions Raising $250M for Content Development, Production & Distribution

By goodblacknews on March 14, 2017

Viola Davis and Julius Tennon (photo via shadowandact.com)

article via shadowandact.com
JuVee Productions – the integrated film, television and digital production company created by Viola Davis and her husband, Julius Tennon, is embarking on an effort to raise $250,000,000 in a global expansion plan for the development, production and distribution of diverse and inclusive film and digital content.
The fund will be used to develop, finance, produce and distribute a slate of multiple feature films and branded digital content that will see the relatively young production company expand its footprint globally. “The shift in storytelling should be inclusive and we aim to make it a reality,” says Julius Tennon in a press statement.
Launched in 2012 by Davis and Tennon, JuVee Productions is a Los Angeles-based artist driven production company that develops and produces independent film, television, theater, and digital content across all platforms. JuVee Productions aims to become the go-to creative hub where the next generation of filmmakers and artists have the space to craft dynamic stories spanning the broad spectrum of humanity.
The company’s most recent project is the courtroom drama “Custody” which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2016, and aired on the Lifetime network last week. The short film “Night Shift” premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January of this year and continues to tour the film festival circuit.
Upcoming the production company has the film adaptation of “The Personal History of Rachel DuPree” which Davis is starring in; a biopic on Barbara Jordan (the first Southern African American woman elected to the United States House of Representatives), also with Davis starring; and a TV period series set up at ABC titled “The Zipcoders,” set in 1968, about a group of black teenagers form a rock ‘n’ roll band who aspire to be like The Beatles; and there’s also Davis’ Harriet Tubman film with HBO.
To read full article, go to: Viola Davis’ JuVee Productions Raising $250M for Content Development, Production & Distribution – Shadow and Act

Viola Davis Developing Harriet Tubman Movie at HBO

By goodblacknews on April 27, 2015
Viola Davis Developing Harriet Tubman Movie
Viola Davis (BARRY KING/GETTY IMAGES)

Viola Davis is attached to star in an HBO telepic about the life of Harriet Tubman, the activist who helped devise a system that allowed hundreds of slaves to escape to freedom via the Underground Railroad.
Davis is developing the project with Amblin TV and writer Kirk Ellis, who has penned historical projects for HBO including its “John Adams” miniseries, and “Entourage” exec producer Doug Ellin. The untitled movie is based on the book “Bound for the Promised Land: Harriet Tubman: Portrait of an American Hero” by Kate Clifford Larson.
Davis is executive producing with her partner and husband, Julius Tennon; Amblin’s Justin Falvey and Darryl Frank; Ellin; Jim Lefkowitz; and Cliff Dorfman.
The movie is in the early development stage and has not been given the go-ahead for production. But  it’s eyed for filming during Davis’ hiatus next year from her hit ABC drama “How to Get Away With Murder.”
Tubman became an American icon as a woman who escaped from slavery in Maryland in 1849 and helped organize a network of safe houses to help her relatives. She eventually helped hundreds of slaves to secure their freedom and became the most famous “conductor” on the network.  During the Civil War, Tubman served with the Union Army as a cook and a nurse, but she was eventually pressed into service as a spy.
Tubman is not the only African-American historical figure that Davis has sought to portray onscreen. The actress has been developing a feature film based on the life of pioneering congresswoman Barbara Jordan.
article by Cynthia Littleton via Variety.com

Loretta Lynch’s #DeltaSigmaTheta Sorority Sisters Came to Support Her Attorney General Confirmation Hearing

By goodblacknews on January 28, 2015

Loretta Lynch Howard Sorority Sisters
Congresswoman Alma S. Adams posted this photo on Jan. 28, 2014. “Supporting Greensboro native, Loretta Lynch, in her confirmation hearing for U.S. Attorney General. #NC12” Alma S. Adams (@RepAdams) via Twitter

Women of the storied African-American sorority Delta Sigma Theta flooded a Senate hearing room on Wednesday to support their fellow sorority sister and Attorney General nominee Loretta Lynch.
Lynch, who is set to face a tough hearing for the post, started a chapter of the sorority at Harvard with current Attorney General Eric Holder’s wife, Sharon Malone. Though the connection was seen as controversial to members of the right-wing media, her sorority sisters proudly donned the organization’s signature colors—crimson and cream—in the hearing room.
https://twitter.com/RepBeatty/status/560457534004531200/photo/1
The sorority was founded in 1913 at Washington, D.C.’s Howard University on tenets of empowerment, justice, and community service. Several current and former members of Congress are members, including Reps. Joyce Beatty and Marcia Fudge of Ohio, Rep. Yvette Clark of New York, and former Congresswomen Barbara Jordan and Shirley Chisholm.