Barbara Jordan - Awards, Honors and Memorials

Awards, Honors and Memorials

In 1992, she was awarded the Spingarn Medal from the NAACP.

In 1993, Jordan was honored with the Elizabeth Blackwell Award from Hobart and William Smith Colleges.

In 1994, Jordan was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

The many other honors given to her include her election into both the Texas and National Women's Hall of Fame; she was awarded the prestigious United States Military Academy's Sylvanus Thayer Award, becoming only the second female awardee.

The main terminal at Austin-Bergstrom International Airport is named after her, as are an elementary school in Odessa, Texas, a middle school in Cibolo, Texas; and Barbara Jordan High School in Houston. The Kaiser Family Foundation currently operates the Barbara Jordan Health Policy Scholars, a fellowship designed for people of color who are college juniors, seniors, and recent graduates as a summer experience working in a congressional office.

On March 27, 2000, a play on Jordan's life premièred at the Victory Garden Theater in Chicago, Illinois. Titled, "Voice of Good Hope", Kristine Thatcher's biographical evocation of Jordan's life played in theaters from San Francisco to New York.

On April 24, 2009, a Barbara Jordan statue was unveiled at the University of Texas at Austin, where Jordan taught at the time of her death. The Barbara Jordan statue campaign was paid for by a student fee increase approved by the University of Texas Board of Regents. The effort was originally spearheaded by the 2002–2003 Tappee class of the Texas Orange Jackets, the "oldest women's organization at the University" (of Texas at Austin).

Many of Jordan's speeches have been collected in a 2007 publication from the University of Texas Press, Barbara Jordan: Speaking the Truth with Eloquent Thunder."

In her namesake, the Jordan/Rustin Coalition (JRC) was created in California in 2000. This organization seeks to mobilize gay and lesbian African Americans to aid in the passage of marriage equality in the state of California. Along with Bayard Rustin, a civil rights leader and close confidante of Martin Luther King, Jr., Barbara Jordan is remembered for her advocacy of progressive politics. According to its website, "the mission is to empower Black same-gender loving, lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender individuals and families in Greater Los Angeles, to promote equal marriage rights and to advocate for fair treatment of everyone without regard to race, sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression."

In 2011, actor/playwright Jade Esteban Estrada portrayed Jordan in the solo musical comedy ICONS: The Lesbian and Gay History of the World, Vol. 5 which includes the song "Nancy's Eyes" sung by the character of Jordan with music and lyrics by Estrada.