jordansnip
(AP/77WABC)-Civil Rights Activist and Advisor to President Bill Clinton, Vernon Jordon, died Monday evening at the age of 85 according to a family statement. A cause of death has not yet been made public.
Jordon was the former president of the National Urban League. He rose to prominence as a Civil Rights activist having worked with Presidents from Lyndon Johnson to Barack Obama.
He was a close ally of the Clinton Family, having attended the wedding of Chelsea Clinton, the only daughter of former President Bill Clinton and former First Lady and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton at The Beekman Arms Inn in Rhinebeck, N.Y., on Friday, July 30, 2010.
Jordan was born on Aug. 15th, 1935 in Atlanta, Georgia. He attended DePauw University and Howard University. He has one daughter Vickee Jordan Adams from his marriage to Shirley Yarbrough who died in 1985. He remarried in 1986 and remained married to Ann Dibble at the time of his death.
He earned a J.D. (Juris Doctor) degree at Howard University School of Law in 1960 enabling him to practice law.
On May 29, 1980, Jordan was shot and seriously wounded outside the Marriott Inn in Fort Wayne, Indiana. He was accompanied by Martha Coleman at the time. Police thought initially that it might have been a domestic incident related to Coleman’s life. Joseph Paul Franklin was acquitted in 1982 of charges of attempted murder. However, in 1996, after having been convicted of murder in yet another case, Franklin admitted to shooting Jordan.
