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:

    “Parents ... are sometimes a bit of a disappointment to their children. They don’t fulfil the promise of their early years.”
    —Anthony Powell (b. 1905)

    “The record of one’s life must needs prove more interesting to him who writes it than to him who reads what has been written.
    “I have no name:
    “I am but two days old.”
    What shall I call thee?
    “I happy am,
    “Joy is my name.”
    Sweet joy befall thee!”
    —William Blake (1757–1827)

    “It is because the body is a machine that education is possible. Education is the formation of habits, a superinducing of an artificial organisation upon the natural organisation of the body.”
    —Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–1895)