Vernon Jordan to receive 2001 Spingarn Medal

New Crisis, The, May/Jun 2001 by Petrie, Phil

The NAACP Today

The NAACP will award the 86th Annual Spingarn Medal to attorney Vernon Jordan in July at the annual convention in New Orleans. The Spingarn Medal is the NAACP's highest honor for achievement. Previous recipients of the medal, first awarded in 1915 by then-NAACP Chairman Joel E. Spingarn, include Martin Luther King Jr., Rose Parks, Duke Ellington, former Virginia Gov. L. Douglas Wilder, Alex Haley, Rev. Jesse Jackson, artist Jacob Lawrence, Oprah Winfrey and Myrlie EversWilliams, chairman emeritus of the NAACP Board of Directors.

"From the days when he faced danger as NAACP field secretary in Georgia until today, Vernon Jordan has been a constant forceful presence for justice and fair play," says NAACP Chairman Julian Bond. "In the South he risked life and limb to help protect our democracy. He directed a massive Southern registration campaign when carrying a voter's card could have been a death warrant. Today, he advises presidents and counsels corporations and civil rights leaders and has served as mentor and guide to hundreds of aspiring young people. He richly deserves this honor. The NAACP is proud to claim him as our own."

Jordan is managing director of Lazard Freres & Co., a financial services firm in New York Prior to joining Lazard, Jordan was a senior executive partner with the law firm of Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld, in Washington, D.C., where he remains of counsel. He has also served as president and CEO of the National Urban League, executive director of the United Negro College Fund and has held several other positions both in public and private industry.

"When I [learned] that the committee had unanimously selected me to receive the medal, it was simultaneously the most exciting and most humbling moment in my life," Jordan says. "I immediately thought of Ruby Hurley [region secretary to whom Jordan reported], Medgar Evers, the Rev. I. DeQuincey Newman [South Carolina NAACP field secretary]; I thought of Thurgood [Marshall], Roy [Wilkins], John Morsell [NAACP assistant executive secretary], Gloster Current and all of the people in the Georgia State Conference with whom I worked when I was field director in Georgia. I am getting this award, in large measure, because of them. They instructed and inspired me during my days at the NAACP It was a very moving moment for me. I'm looking forward to July in New Orleans."

- Phil Petrie