biography
| name: |
Jordan, Vernon (Eulion), Jr
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| sex:
| male
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| lived:
| (1935– )
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| biography:
| Attorney and civil rights leader, born in Atlanta, Georgia, USA. He studied at the Howard University Law School, Washington, DC, and worked in the South during the civil rights movement of the 1960s, becoming director of the Voter Education Project of the Southern Regional Council (1964–8) and executive director of the United Negro College Fund (1970). He served as executive director of the United Negro College Fund (1970–1), and was president of the National Urban League (1971–81), where he forged links between the black community and the Nixon and Carter White Houses, pushed voter registration, a full employment plan, and school desegregration, and strengthened the League's traditional social-service role. During a visit to Fort Wayne, IN, in 1980 he suffered serious wounds from a racially-motivated sniper attack. After his recovery, he served on a number of major corporate boards and became an influential Washington lobbyist with strong ties to the Democratic Party and especially his golfing friend and political ally, President Clinton. Jordan's efforts to find a job for Monica Lewinsky in 1997 and 1998 brought him directly into the obstruction of justice charges in the impeachment proceedings against the president. He remained an influential power broker in Washington, continuing to play that role in the nation's politics during Clinton's presidency. |
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