The Westport Center for the Arts and Jacqueline L. Gafford present a one-woman play about the life and times of Barbara Jordan, the first southern black female elected to the United States House of Representatives and the first African-American woman to deliver the keynote address at the Democratic National Convention.

The play opens on the first day of Professor Barbara Jordan’s Political Values and Ethic class, graduate level, at the University of Texas in Austin. In an effort to make her students more at ease and to give them and idea of who she is and what will be expected of them in her class, she decides treat the class to the story of her life and her journey to this point.

Barbara Jordan was the first black person and the first black woman ever elected to the Texas Legislature and to the US congress from Texas since Reconstruction. She was considered a stateswoman of the highest caliber. As a member of the commission that investigated the involvement of Richard Nixon in the Watergate cover-up she was able to layout in layman's terms all of the constitutional infractions and the reasons that the president should be impeached. Largely because of her dedication to the American constitution Richard Nixon was forced resigned the US Presidency on August, 1974.

Barbara Jordan will be portrayed by the amazing local actress Jacqueline L. Gafford. Ms. Gafford is the Artistic Director of the Inplay Theater Company, a member of the Just Off Broadway Theater Assocation. She is also a well known playwright with works including Harlem Knights and Nothing Comes to Sleepers.