Barbara Jordan statue

A student-initiated effort results in the installation of a statue of Barbara Jordan, the first female public figure honored on the university’s campus in its 126-year history. Barbara Jordan was the first African American representative to be elected to the U.S. House of Representatives from Texas. In 1972 she became the first African American woman from the South to be elected to the U.S. Congress. In 1979 she became a professor at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs. In 1994, President Bill Clinton awarded Jordan the Medal of Freedom.