In 1956, Barbara Jordan graduated with honors from Texas Southern University. She studied law at Boston University, and graduated in 1959. Jordan was elected to the Texas Senate in 1966. Then, in 1972, after serving for six years as a state Senator, Jordan was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives becoming the first black woman from the Deep South to become a U.S. Representative. In 1976, Jordan gave the keynote address at the 1976 Democratic convention. After deciding not to run for a fourth term in Congress, in 1979, she became a Professor at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas. In 1993, President Clinton appointed Jordan as the head of the Congressionally appointed bi-partisan U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform. The Commission was authorized by the Immigration Act of 1990 to advise the Congress on immigration policy. In August 1994, Jordan was awarded the Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor, by President Bill Clinton. Jordan died in 1996 at the age of 59. The Commission's final report was issued in 1997.

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