Vernon Jordan
Civil Rights Leader
After working with fellow civil rights activist Donald L. Hollowell on a lawsuit against the University of Georgia for the institution's racially discriminatory admissions policies, this attorney held executive positions with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the National Urban League, and the United Negro College Fund.
After graduating from Indiana's DePauw University, he earned a J.D. from the Howard University School of Law.
He survived a 1980 murder attempt in Fort Wayne, Indiana. In 1996, serial killer Joseph Paul Franklin confessed that he had shot Jordan.
His first marriage, to Shirley Yarbrough, resulted in a daughter named Vickee. Following his first wife's death, he married Revlon executive Ann Dibble Jordan.
During the early 1990s, he was an adviser to President Bill Clinton.