Jordan, Vernon E., Jr.

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Jordan, Vernon E., Jr.

August 8, 1935

Born and raised in Atlanta, lawyer and civil rights leader Vernon Eulion Jordan Jr. lived until the age of thirteen in the University Homes Project, the first federally funded housing project in the country. He majored in political science at DePauw University in Indiana. After graduating in 1957 as the only African American in his class, he attended Howard University for his law degree (1960). In 1960 his home state of Georgia admitted him to the bar and he began work as a law clerk in the office of the eminent black civil rights attorney, Donald L. Hollowell. Jordan worked with Hollowell on the landmark 1961 desegregation suit that forced the University of Georgia to admit its first black students. The Georgia branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People hired Jordan as its field secretary from 1961 to 1963. Beginning in 1965, Jordan headed the Voter Education Project (VEP) of the Southern Regional Council, which succeeded in registering approximately two million black voters.

In 1969 Jordan was appointed a fellow of the Institute of Politics at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government, and the next year he was named executive director of the United Negro College Fund, where he continued to hone his fund-raising skills. In 1972 he became executive director of the National Urban League. With monies raised from the corporate sector, as well as federal grants, Jordan doubled the size of the league's operating budget and undertook programs in housing, health, education, and job training. He also inaugurated league programs in the areas of energy and the environment. In 1975 Jordan began a policy review journal, The Urban League Review, and the next year instituted an annual report, The State of Black America.

On May 29, 1980, while returning to his hotel in Fort Wayne, Indiana, following a speech, Jordan was shot in the back by a sniper. He spent more than ninety days in the hospital, but despite his near-fatal wounds, he recovered fully. In August 1982 Joseph Paul Franklin was brought to trial in federal court on charges of violating Jordan's civil rights (Indiana authorities did not file attempted murder charges). Franklin, an avowed racist, had been convicted earlier in 1982 of the murder of two black joggers, a crime for which he was serving four consecutive life sentences. He was nevertheless acquitted of violating Jordan's civil rights.

On December 31, 1981, Jordan resigned his position at the Urban League. While Jordan claimed that he had planned to serve for only ten years, his resignation was widely seen as having been influenced by his attempted assassination. Soon thereafter, he accepted a position as partner in the powerful Washington, D.C., law firm of Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld. He also served on a number of corporate and foundation boards throughout the 1980s and early 1990s. His lucrative corporate and lobbying activities have been controversial among civil rights activists, who have accused him of forsaking the black struggle for personal advantage. Jordan's defenders have responded by pointing to his private lobbying of business and government, notably for the 1991 Civil Rights Act. A close adviser of President Bill Clinton, Jordan headed the president-elect's transition team in 1993, though he refused the office of U.S. attorney general.

Over the following years, Jordan was a visible "first friend," golfing and vacationing with the president and functioning as a behind-the-scenes adviser. In March 1998 Jordan testified to a grand jury investigating Clinton's sexual relationship with Monica Lewinsky that he had helped find Lewinsky a job and a lawyer.

In 2001 Jordan published his autobiography, Vernon Can Read!: A Memoir. In addition, Jordan led the negotiating team for Senator John Kerry in setting up a series of debates with President George W. Bush in the 2004 presidential election campaign.