Notable Quotable: Barbara Jordan, Civil Rights Leader and U.S. Representative


By Paulette Beete
image of text that says '"The arts are not a frill. The arts are a response to our individuality and our nature, and help to shape our identity. What is there that can transcend deep difference and stubborn divisions? The arts. They have a wonderful universality. Art has the potential to unify. It can speak in many languages without a translator. The arts do not discriminate. The arts can lift us up." BARBARA JORDAN'

This quote is from a speech that the late Civil Rights leader and U.S. Representative Barbara Jordan delivered to the American Council for the Arts as a Nancy Hanks Lecture on March 16, 1993. The speech is available in its entirety online in the Texas Southern University Barbara Jordan collection.