The first African American to serve in the Texas Senate since Reconstruction, Barbara Jordan was also the first black woman elected to Congress from the South, and the first to deliver the keynote address at a national party convention. Her powerful oratory stirred a nation; her ideals of ethical leadership inspired millions.

Yet Jordan herself remained a mystery, a woman so private that even her close friends did not know the name of the illness that debilitated her for two decades until it struck her down at the age of fifty-nine.

Mary Beth Rogers first met Barbara Jordan in the 1960s, and their paths crossed over the years as they pursued their academic and political careers. Now Rogers's meticulously documented biography deftly combines personal insight and impeccable research to explore the forces that shaped the moral character and quiet dignity of this extraordinary woman.

Examining Jordan's stark childhood as the daughter of a Baptist preacher in sharply segregated Houston, Rogers reveals the seeds of her trademark stoicism and recaptures the essence of a black woman entering politics as the civil rights movement exploded across the nation. Jordan's political career went on to be both groundbreaking and inspiring.