Vernon Jordan at work on voter-registration efforts at the Southern Regional Council in 1967. Photo: Warren K Leffler/PhotoQuest/Getty Images It is unfortunately true that many younger Americans, if they’ve at all heard of Vernon Jordan — who died yesterday evening at 85 — it was probably as a big-time Friend of Bill, the 42nd president’s confidant and golfing buddy.
After the Georgia case, he served as Georgia field director of the N.A.A.C.P. The job required him to travel regularly throughout the Southeast to oversee civil rights cases both large and small. He said he tried to model himself after a friend, the vaunted director of the Mississippi office, Medgar Evers, who was later assassinated.
He oversaw a budget of $100 million and traveled extensively to raise money from corporate leaders to support job training, early-childhood education and other programs aimed at improving Black life in the United States. He joined the boards of blue-chip companies including American Express, Xerox, Dow Jones & Co., Union Carbide and RJR Nabisco, and used his access to executives to encourage major companies to hire women and members of minority groups.
By the time his old friend Clinton ran for president, Jordan was perfectly positioned to serve as a trusted guide to his various circles of influence. He could have definitely had an ambassadorship had he wanted one, and Clinton reportedly offered him the attorney-general post.
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