Vernon Jordan, a civil rights icon and adviser to former President Bill Clinton, died on Monday, according to his family.
He was 85 years old.
His daughter, Vickee Jordan, said he “passed away peacefully last night, surrounded by loved ones”.
“We appreciate all expressions of love and affection,” she said in a statement on Tuesday.
Jordan grew up in the segregated South and became an influential leader in the American civil rights movement, in Washington politics and on Wall Street.
A graduate of DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana, and Howard University School of Law, he became president of the National Urban League from 1971 to 1981.
According to the organization, he was the first to produce the State of Black America report in 1976 “after President Gerald Ford’s State of the Union address and Senator Edmund Muskie’s response completely ignored the crisis that black Americans faced “.
Jordan was also the executive director of the United Negro College Fund in 1980 and 1981. In a tweet, the organization’s president, Michael Lomax, called Jordan’s death a “painful loss” and reflected on the last time the two met. they saw.
“My last meeting with Great Vernon Jordan at his DC office to get advice and advice on a difficult issue facing UNCF,” he captioned a picture of them together.
“He was always there for @UNCF, for #HBCUs and black college students. He loved to remember Benjamin Mays, Albert Dent and great HBCU presidents he knew.”
Jordan’s first wife, Shirley Yarbrough Jordan, died in December 1985. He leaves his daughter and his second wife, Ann Jordan.
This is an evolving story; check again for updates.
Reuters and The Associated Press contributed.