Congresswoman and Educator Barbara Jordan Is the Latest Honoree in the Postal Service’s Black Heritage Series

The first African American to appear on a U.S. postage stamp was Booker T. Washington in 1940. Since then, scores of black Americans have appeared on stamps.

In 1978 the U.S. Postal Service debuted its Black Heritage series. Many black educators including W.E.B. Du Bois, Ernest Just, Percy Julian, Carter G. Woodson, Mary McLeod Bethune, and Anna Julia Cooper have been among the honorees in this series.

The 34th U.S. postage stamp in the Black Heritage series honors Barbara Jordan, the former congresswoman and educator. The stamp will be issued in September.

Jordan was a graduate of Texas Southern University and Boston University School of Law. In 1966 she was the first African-American woman elected to the Texas state Senate. In 1972 she was elected to Congress. Jordan, who suffered from multiple sclerosis, left Congress after only three terms and took a faculty position at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas. Jordan died in 1996 at the age of 59.