Barbara Jordan: Hiding in Plain Sight While Working for 'The Common Good'
Women's History Month, 2002 -- Barbara Jordan, who died in 1996, was an African-American woman whose life consisted of a string of firsts. She was also an expert, in the tradition of President Roosevelt, at hiding the true nature of her disability. Barbara Jordan became the first African-American woman in the Texas state senate in the late 1960s. She was also the first Southern person of her race and gender to be elected to the U.S. House of Representatives (in 1974), and the first to deliver a keynote address to a Democratic national convention (in 1976.)