"I am writing to pay tribute to a woman I knew before her political star had risen, before she delivered the speech that transfixed the nation during the darkest days of Watergate and before she. became a symbol of the possibilities achievable by black Americans, through her extraordinary work, courage and self-discipline. I am speaking of Barbara Jordan, who died last week at the age of 59 and with whom I had the privilege of working in the early 1960s.

Barbara Jordan and I grew up in different worlds, although our childhood homes were scarcely a mile apart. We went to different neighborhood schools, hers attended only by blacks, mine only by whites. Our lives never intersected, separated as they were by segregated buses, restrooms, water fountains, lunch counters and churches.

It was only much later, after each of us had gone to different universities and then returned to Houston that our paths finally crossed.

In the wake of Brown vs. Board of Education, the Houston School Board responded to federal pressure to desegregate schools by adopting a halfhearted plan to integrate one grade per year. Barbara. Jordan, already a force in Houston politics, responded by forming a protest group, and we began staging marches and rallies and packing School Board meetings. Houston had become a center for the space program, so we took advantage of the press coverage by demonstrating outside the Space Center during a popular launch, hoping to gain national attention. Whether we did or not, I don't know, but the School Board eventually backed down and adopted a more aggressive plan for integration.

Barbara Jordan's dedication, focus and assurance in the rightness of her cause gave her an authority that even then suggested she was destined to become a charismatic leader. I often drove her to meetings, and we would talk. The public figure could be intimidating, but in private she had a ready laugh, easy empathy and a young woman's vulnerability.

Nothing came easily for her in a segregated society. As a student, she had labored to cultivate her extraordinary speaking style, taking debate and oratory classes and modeling after pastors and professors she knew. She became the nation's top student orator, but could not eat in most restaurants or stay in most hotels when traveling to competitions.
Barbara went on to a great career as a national leader and symbol of the fight for civil rights. I will never forget the late hours running off fliers on her creaky mimeo machine or the exhilaration of marching with citizens black and white to our first School Board meeting. Mostly, however, I remember her forceful presence as she confronted the board, speaking there just as eloquently as she would later speak to Congress and the nation.

Many years after I last saw her in Houston, Barbara spoke at the University of Virginia. Now an esteemed former congresswoman and revered public figure, she attracted an audience that filled University Hall. From that audience, I was shocked to see the early effects of what I later learned was multiple sclerosis. The person I had known as a robust young woman now seemed fragile. She required help ascending the steps to the speaker's platform. Nonetheless, she brought the audience to its feet several times, her voice still powerful and her speech still resolute.

Barbara Jordan could not overcome the progressive illness that took her life, as she had overcome every adversity before that. To me, she will always be the girl who could have been a friend had adult prejudice not kept us apart, and the woman who became a friend in spite of it. I am thankful to have known her, and I deeply mourn her passing." (Meredith Richards, Daily Progress, January 28, 1996)