"Selma is Now," Vernon Jordan '57 Tells MLK Breakfast in Minneapolis

January 19, 2015

"In his keynote remarks during an MLK Day breakfast at the Minneapolis Convention Center, nationally known civil rights activist Vernon Jordan praised the estimated 3,000 protesters who assembled at Mall of America in Bloomington on Dec. 20, the busy shopping Saturday before Christmas," reports the St. Paul Pioneer Press. "Theater-goers at the mall saw '3,000 people chanting, insisting that black lives matter,' said Jordan, referencing the King biopic Selma. Quoting the rapper known as Common, he later added, 'Selma is now'."

The 25th annual Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Holiday Breakfast took place today and included a performance by and Grammy Award-winning musician Yolanda Adams. Vernon Jordan is a 1957 graduate of DePauw University.

Frederick Melo writes, "Jordan also urged forgiveness and reconciliation. Jordan, who was shot in the back in May 1980, recalled receiving a supportive letter from Alabama Gov. George Wallace -- a diehard segregationist during the civil rights era. Wallace, who was partially paralyzed and used a wheelchair as a result of an assassination attempt in 1972, met Jordan years later and asked him for a hug. Jordan said he wrapped his arms around 'the villain of Selma, a mean old racist who once stood at the schoolhouse door to keep black people out.' He added: 'Political differences must be subordinated to common humanity'."

Access the complete article at the newspaper's website. Audio of the speech is available here.

Another story, by KARE, notes that Jordan told the gathering, "Rioting is not the solution. Burning up our own neighborhoods is not the solution. Blaming the police or cursing the police is not a solution. The solution is the tough task of getting people registered and out to vote and informed on the issues."

An attorney, Vernon E. Jordan Jr. served as an adviser to President Bill Clinton and was executive director of the United Negro College Fund, Inc.; director of the Voter Education Project of the Southern Regional Council; attorney-consultant, U.S. Office of Economic Opportunity; assistant to the executive director of the Southern Regional Council; and as Georgia Field Director of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. A political science major as an undergraduate, he is a former member of DePauw's Board of Trustees. (at right: President Bill Clinton and Vernon Jordan at DePauw; November 18, 2011)