On March 28, 1972, Jordan’s peers elected her president pro tempore of the Texas senate, making her the first Black woman in America to preside over a legislative body. In seconding the nomination, one of Jordan’s male colleagues on the other side of the chamber stood, spread his arms open, and said, “What can I say? Black is beautiful.”3
Source: history.house.gov
3Richard Fenno, Going Home: Black Representatives and Their Constituents (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003): 106–109.