Last year Barbara C. Jordan Elementary School hosted a Barbara Jordan stamp unveiling in conjunction with the United States Postal Service Gateway District. Students Leyaanna Martin and Jessica Nohone (above) did the honors.
The stamp is the 34th to be issued as part of the U.S. Postal Service’s Black Heritage Series. St. Louis Postmaster Larry Diegel (above, left) said, “Jordan captured the attention and admiration of the nation with her intelligence and integrity, eloquent oratory, ardent defense of the Constitution, and staunch advocacy rights for all Americans.”
The portrait featured on the stamp is an oil painting by Albert Slark, based on an undated black-and-white photograph of Jordan. Art director Richard Sheaff designed the stamp.
She was the first African American elected to the Texas Senate after Reconstruction (1966) and the first Southern black female elected to the United States House of Representatives (1972). In 1976, she became instead the first African-American woman to deliver the keynote address at the Democratic National Convention. She received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1994.
In 1973, Jordan began to suffer from multiple sclerosis. She had difficulty climbing stairs, and she started using a cane and eventually a wheelchair. Upon her death from complications of pneumonia on January 17, 1996, Jordan lay in state at the LBJ Library on the campus of The University of Texas at Austin. She was buried in the Texas State Cemetery in Austin, and was the first black woman interred there.
