Barbara Charline Jordan (February 21, 1936 – January 17, 1996) was an American lawyer, educator, and politician. A member of the Democratic Party, she was the first African American elected to the Texas Senate since Reconstruction, the first southern African-American woman elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, and one of the first two African Americans elected to the U.S. House from the former Confederacy since 1901, alongside Andrew Young of Georgia.

Jordan achieved fame for delivering a powerful opening statement at the House Judiciary Committee hearings during the impeachment process against Richard Nixon. In 1976, she became the first African American, and the first woman, to deliver a keynote address at a Democratic National Convention. Jordan is also known for her work as chair of the U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform. She received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, among numerous other honors. She was the first African-American woman to be buried in the Texas State Cemetery.

Barbara Charline Jordan was born in Houston, Texas's Fifth Ward. Jordan's childhood was centered on church life at the Good Hope Missionary Baptist Church. Her mother was Arlyne Patten Jordan, a teacher in the church and a maid. Her father was Benjamin Jordan, a Baptist preacher and a warehouse worker. Jordan would recite poetry at the church and would sing gospel music with her sisters. In 1949, Jordan's father joined the Greater Pleasant Hill Baptist Church as the full-time pastor.

Through her mother, Jordan was the great-granddaughter of Edward Patton, who was one of the last African American members of the Texas House of Representatives prior to disenfranchisement of Black Texans under Jim Crow. Barbara Jordan was the youngest of three children. Her older siblings were Rose Mary Jordan McGowan and Bennie Creswell Jordan (1933–2000).

Jordan attended Roberson Elementary School. She graduated from Phillis Wheatley High School in 1952 with honors. At Wheatley, Jordan's linguistic abilities were developed through the support of her teachers and curriculum. Major influences included her English teacher Mrs. D. B. Reid, elocutionist Ashton J. Oliver, and speech and drama teacher Robert T. Holland.

Jordan credited a speech she heard in her high school years by Edith S. Sampson with inspiring her to become an attorney. Because of segregation, she could not attend the University of Texas at Austin and instead chose Texas Southern University, a historically black institution, majoring in political science and history. At Texas Southern University, Jordan was a national champion debater, learning from her coach, Thomas Freeman, and defeating opponents from Yale and Brown, and tying Harvard University. She graduated magna cum laude in 1956. At Texas Southern University, she pledged Delta Gamma chapter of Delta Sigma Theta sorority. She attended Boston University School of Law, graduating in 1959.

Jordan taught political science at Tuskegee Institute in Alabama for a year. In 1960, she returned to Houston and started a private law practice. During that time, the 24-year-old Jordan was one of only two black women attorneys in Texas. To start off her career, Jordan became the first Black woman to work as an administrative assistant to a county judge, Bill Elliott. Jordan began her work in politics in 1960 when she became a volunteer for the John F. Kennedy-Lyndon B. Johnson campaign, traveling to African American churches in Houston to encourage people to vote.

Jordan campaigned unsuccessfully in 1962 and 1964 for the Texas House of Representatives. Along with Curtis Graves and Joe Lockridge, she was one of three African American members elected in 1966 to the Texas Legislature, the first ones since 1896. With Jordan elected to the Texas Senate, she became the first black woman to serve in that body. She served the Eleventh Senate District in Houston, which had just been created after Kilgarlin v. Martin (1965) in which the federal court demanded redistricting of the Texas Legislature because densely populated urban areas were underrepresented in comparison to rural areas. In a speech at Rice University following the district's creation, but before her election, Jordan said, "For the first time in Texas, we are going to have legislators who represent people, not cattle."