Vernon Jordan - Early Life and Education

Early Life and Education

Vernon Jordan was born in Georgia to Mary Jordan and Vernon E. Jordan Sr; he has a brother Windsor. He is the cousin of James Shaw, a musician who is professionally billed as "The Mighty Hannibal."

Jordan grew up with his family in Atlanta's segregated society during the 1950s. He was an honor graduate of David Tobias Howard High School. Rejected for a summer intern's job with an insurance company because of his race after his sophomore year in college, he earned money for a few summers for college by working as a chauffeur to the former city mayor Robert Maddox, then a banker. Jordan graduated from DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana, in 1957. He earned a law degree at Howard University School of Law in 1960. He is a member of the Omega Psi Phi and Sigma Pi Phi fraternities.

Read more about this topic:  Vernon Jordan

Famous quotes containing the words early, life and/or education:

    Three early risings make an extra day.
    Chinese proverb.

    What if there are not only two nostrils, two eyes, two lobes, and so forth, but two psyches as well, and they are separately equipped? They go through life like Siamese twins inside one person.... They can be just a little different, like identical twins, or they can be vastly different, like good and evil.
    Norman Mailer (b. 1923)

    Because of these convictions, I made a personal decision in the 1964 Presidential campaign to make education a fundamental issue and to put it high on the nation’s agenda. I proposed to act on my belief that regardless of a family’s financial condition, education should be available to every child in the United States—as much education as he could absorb.
    Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908–1973)