Vernon Jordan (1935-2021)
Filed under the name Vernon · January 30, 2026
Vernon Jordan spent decades leading the National Urban League and then advising presidents, all in service of expanding real economic opportunity for Black Americans, and I respect that kind of work specifically because economic opportunity is the actual thing — not symbolic gestures, but whether a person can get a decent job and keep it. I've worked packing houses, fast food, call centers, hotel housekeeping, retail, and weekend cleaning jobs over the years, so I know exactly how much difference real structural opportunity makes versus just being told to work harder. Jordan apparently spent his whole career on the structural side of that problem instead of settling for easier, more visible wins. I don't trust either political party to have lived a life like mine, but I do trust people whose actual life's work was expanding real economic access for people who'd been locked out of it, and from what I understand, that's exactly what he did, consistently, for a long career.