{"id":63030,"date":"2025-11-05T19:30:00","date_gmt":"2025-11-06T00:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.umw.edu\/greatlives\/?post_type=lecture&p=63030"},"modified":"2026-03-30T17:05:49","modified_gmt":"2026-03-30T21:05:49","slug":"barbara-jordan","status":"publish","type":"lecture","link":"https:\/\/www.umw.edu\/greatlives\/lecture\/barbara-jordan\/","title":{"rendered":"Barbara Jordan"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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great lives lecture series<\/div>

Barbara Jordan<\/strong><\/h1><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n
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Weather Update:<\/strong> Due to inclement weather, the Great Lives lecture on Barbara Jordan<\/strong>, presented by Mary Ellen Curtin and originally scheduled for Thursday, January 29, has been rescheduled for Thursday, March 26<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lecture Date: March 26, 2026<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The Jack and Marilyn Farrington Lecture<\/h3>\n\n\n
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During her keynote speech at the 1976 Democratic Party convention, Barbara Jordan of Texas stood before a rapt audience and reflected on where Americans stood in that bicentennial year. \u201cAre we to be one people bound together by a common spirit, sharing in a common endeavor, or will we become a divided nation? For all of its uncertainty, we cannot flee the future.\u201d The civil rights movement had changed American politics by opening up elected office to a new generation of Black leaders, including Jordan, the first Black woman from the South to serve in Congress. Though her life in elected politics lasted only twelve years, in that short time, Jordan changed the nation by showing that Black women could lead their party and legislate on behalf of what she called \u201cthe common good.\u201d In She Changed the Nation: Barbara Jordan\u2019s Life and Legacy in Black Politics<\/em>, biographer Mary Ellen Curtin examines the life and significance of a groundbreaking figure regarded as one of the greatest orators of modern America.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Speaker: Mary Ellen Curtin<\/h2>\n\n\n
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Mary Ellen Curtin is a historian of modern African American history and women’s social and political history at American University. Her first book, Black Prisoners and Their World,<\/em> 1865-1900<\/em> (University Press of Virginia, 2000) investigated the origins of the convict leasing system in Alabama and explored the lives of Black convict coal miners and their communities after emancipation. Dr. Curtin holds a BA from the University of Rochester, and earned her MA and PhD from Duke University. She served as a consultant for the 2012 PBS documentary Slavery by Another Name<\/em>, a history of African Americans and forced labor in the South. She teaches courses in American Studies, African American history, and seminars on poverty, incarceration, Washington DC, and politics for American University\u2019s Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies program. In the spring of 2025, she was in residence at Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznan, Poland as a Fulbright Distinguished Scholar in the Humanities and Social Sciences.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"umw_cb_additional_links":[[]],"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_advisory_expires_time":"","_advisory_meta_include":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"season":[1263],"class_list":{"0":"post-63030","1":"lecture","2":"type-lecture","3":"status-publish","5":"season-1263","6":"entry"},"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nBarbara Jordan - Great Lives<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.umw.edu\/greatlives\/lecture\/barbara-jordan\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Barbara Jordan\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Weather Update: Due to inclement weather, the Great Lives lecture on Barbara Jordan, presented by Mary Ellen Curtin and originally scheduled for Thursday, January 29, has been rescheduled for Thursday, March 26. 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