Vernon Jordan Profiled in National Law Journal
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The National Law Journal has profiled Akin Gump senior counsel Vernon Jordan in the article “Q&A: Vernon Jordan on His Quest for Workplace Equality.” The article traces Jordan’s decades-long career, beginning with his involvement in the civil rights movement.
Jordan described the 1950s and 1960s as being about “defining rights—the right to check-in.” The 1970s, meanwhile, he said, were about having the means to “check-out”—being able to get a job and get paid a fair salary in order to pay one’s bills.
While Jordan spent the early part of his career focused on “checking in” as a civil rights lawyer, working to secure such things as voting rights for African Americans and desegregation in education, he said his greatest impact would be felt in the chapter of the civil rights story that gets less attention—checking out. As head of the National Urban League he told the NLJ his focus was on achieving economic rights for African Americans. He stepped down from that post in 1981 to join Akin Gump.
In the article, Jordan also briefly discusses his childhood in Atlanta, his work after law school on the legal team that secured a federal court order mandating that the University of Georgia admit its first two African American students and the 1980 assassination attempt against him.