Vernon Jordan: Make It Plain

GATES: Vernon Jordan is the Rosa Parks of Wall Street.

LEE: The voice of reason or conscience for presidents.

BUFFET: If I ask Vernon, I'm gonna get something that's meaningful.

CLINTON: I had to listen to how handsome and brilliant and good he was, you know, it was revolting.

NARRATOR: "Vernon Jordan: Make it Plain" Coming up next.

NARRATOR: Funding for "Vernon Jordan: Make it Plain" was provided by Ford Foundation Ju st Films.

And by the Andrew W. Mellon foundation.

(birds chirping) BERNARD: Good morning, sir.

JORDAN: They got you up early this morning.

BERNARD: Yes, sir.

(laughs).

JORDAN: All right.

Call Powell's secretary and see if we're gonna have to respond.

Yeah.

All right.

I'll talk to you.

Bernard, how you been.

Okay?

BERNARD: I'm fine, thank you, sir.

JORDAN: This yesterday's paper?

It's all about the election.

BERNARD: Yes.

JORDAN: I'm tired of reading about that.

(Bernard laughs).

JORDAN: My father was a hard-working man.

He was a mail carrier.

And my father would have been very content had I finished high school, married a nice girl, got a job in the post office.

For him that would have been very, a good thing.

And my mother's attitude, "That's not good enough for this boy.

He's gonna do things, and he's gonna go places.

" And I believed her.

MODERATOR: Our guest today on "Meet the Press" is Vernon E. Jordan, Junior, President of the National Urban League.

Mr. Jordan has been active in civil rights work including the NAACP and the Voters Education Project for twenty-one years.

He survived an assassin's bullet in Fort Wayne, Indiana, last year.

He has announced his resignation from the Urban League effective the end of this month to go into private law practice.

But it's obvious today that the civil rights movement is meeting some kind of resistance or in some way perhaps has ended.

Is it the same as it used to be?

Is the momentum gone?

Has the civil rights movement ended?

JORDAN: Well, I think that too many people want to measure the civil rights movement by the drama of the 1960's.

Uh, what has happened is that that drama has changed, and that drama brought about many, many significant changes, it, the Civil Rights Act of '64.

FAUNTROY: I see Vernon Jordan a little differently than traditional civil rights leaders.

He understood that you can work to help people on the ground.

But that work is always going to be operating under an umbrella of public policy.

You can't help people without changing the public policies that create the circumstances in which they live.

JORDAN: We have no full-employment policy.

We have no welfare reform policy.

To paraphrase Winston Churchill, "Never have so many expected so much and received so little.

" (applause).

CLINTON: When I met Hillary in 1971, first thing she did was tell me about Vernon Jordan.

I had to listen to how handsome and brilliant and good he was.

You know, it was revolting.

He wanted to make his contribution be part of the movement but have a unique life.

The advisor to presidents, not just me.

GATES: Vernon Jordan was the first person to realize that a devastatingly effective form of black power would be top-down integration at the heart of American capitalism: Wall Street.

Vernon Jordan has done more to integrate the corridors of financial power than any African American in history.

Vernon Jordan is the Rosa Parks of Wall Street.

(theme music plays) (fire crackles) JORDAN: "Rows start chanting, rocking to the same rhythm in our old rocking chair."

Speech Maker has a big responsibility.

"To the highest aspirations."

It has to be sufficiently entertaining that people will listen.

But then he has to say something that makes listening worthwhile... "Back in the back of his mouth."

Sometimes I sit here trying to figure out what to say, and I look at my mom, and I say, "What do you think about this?

" TRUMP: Nearly 180,000 illegal immigrants with criminal records ordered deported from our country are tonight roaming free to threaten peaceful citizens.

(audience booing).

CROWD: Build that wall, Build that wall!

ANN: We're waiting on you right now.

JORDAN: Sent you to get me down the stairs.

ANN: Everyone sent me to give you the message.

(laughs).

WOMAN: So do we have everybody?

Should LB ride with us in the back?

Are you going to drive separate?

WOMAN 2: Can't you fit three in the, you put three in front?

ANN: What?

WOMAN 2: Nanna, go.

ANN: Too many bosses.

(laughter).

(overlapping chatter).

JORDAN: I got the phrase, "Make it Plain" in church.

He said, "Make it plain, Preacher.

Put it there where we can get it.

" CHOIR: Holy, holy, holy Lord, God, Almighty Oh thy works shall praise Thy name In earth and sky and sea JORDAN: Good morning, Rankin Chapel.

CONGREGATION: Good morning.

JORDAN: During these times it is tempting to believe that our problems are particular and that our situation is unprecedented.

I have come to say to you this morning, "We have been here before.

" (audience murmurs).

I am reminded of my earliest exposure to American politics.

Growing up in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1943, there was a gubernatorial race.

And Governor Eugene Talmadge comes on WSB radio, and he says, "Fellow Georgians, I am running for re-election.

I have two planks in my platform: niggers and roads.

I am against the first, and for the second.

This is exactly what President Trump is saying now.

(applause).

Except his two planks are immigrants and jobs.

He's against the first, and claims to be for the second.

So when the executive orders bar people from our shores based on what they look like or how they worship, it is hard not to hear the echoes of Strom Thurmond on the campaign trail in 1948 or George Wallace in the schoolhouse door in 1963 saying, "Segregation today, tomorrow, forever.

" We have been here before.

(applause).

Indeed, because we have been here before, we know we will endure.

But our journey also teaches us that endurance is not enough.

Listen.

We do not sing, "We shall endure.

" (audience murmur).

We sing, "We shall overcome.

" (applause).

JORDAN: A member of the Fulton County Commission made a speech recently and was quoted in the Atlanta Constitution as saying that we have to have annexation so as to prevent the center city from being governed by, quote, "the uneducated and the unfit.

" Now, if that is the basis for annexation, I'm opposed to it.

Because the uneducated and the unfit that he's talkin' about is me, is Maynard, is Leroy, or others of us in the black community who not only are educated but are well educated and certainly are well fit to do anything in this community that any white man can do in this community.

Thank you.

(applause).

JORDAN: Whenever I come to Atlanta, I come by and say "hello" to my mother.

And now I get to say "hello" to my mother and my brother.

I am proud of having grown up in Atlanta, Georgia.

I grew up in the first public housing project for black people in America.

My father, very committed to going to work, gettin' there on time, and then workin' later that night as a bartender in my mother's catering business.

Work was a big value in the Jordan family.

I can't remember, after I was twelve years old, not having a job somewhere.

I was a head dishwasher when I was fifteen years old at Emory University, because I was the only one working in the dish room who could read.

You only came in contact with white people when you got on the bus and they sat up front and you sat in the back.

I remember catching a streetcar.

And my mother would say, "Just because you have to sit back here, and they have to sit up there, does not mean that they are better than you.

You are as good as anybody on this streetcar.

" This whole experience, um, convinced me that, if I got educated, I could do something about it.

I'd like a dollar for the times that I've walked through this campus.

When I went to a piano lesson, I came right through here.

When I went to the Ashby Street Theatre, I walked right through here.

Because I lived straight that way.

DIRECTOR: This is your neighborhood.

JORDAN: Yeah.

And one time Benjamin Mays is leaving his house, walking through the campus, and I'm twenty feet behind him.

And he's walking like this.

So I walked like that.

It's the absolute truth.

All of the presidents in the Atlanta University center were people to whom I looked up as a kid: President Mays and Morehouse, President Rufus Clement at Atlanta University, President Brawley at Clark College.

The proximity had a big influence on me and what I wanted to be.

Every Sunday morning I looked forward to walking to St. Paul AME Church with my father and my brothers.

Whenever I am home in Atlanta on a Sunday, I come to St. Paul.

'Cause this is home.

Now, right back here is a pew named for my mother.

When I went to Europe for the first time and I was, uh, I forget where I was, but I bought a fan, you know, and gave it to her.

And so she would come and sit on her pew and, and the other sister would say, "Sister, where'd you get that fan?

" She says, "Vernon brought it from Europe.

" (laughs).

She loved it.

She was an unlearned, unlettered black women from the South, with a Ph.D. in life.

I started elementary school at Walker Street School in the first grade.

After the first month my mother was president of the PTA.

She then became president of the State PTA for colored children.

JORDAN: I could have gone to Howard, I could have gone to Morehouse.

But I had been to DePauw right after I graduated high school.

I knew that I was going to be the only black in my class.

I wanted to do something different.

I wanted to be in another challenging, boring almost, setting.

My mother wrote me a note.

"Dear Man", she called me, "Man.

" And she called me "Man" because young white men would call my father "boy.

" And she wanted me to know that I was a man.

She said, "Dear Man, we want you to go to college wherever you want to go to college.

But it may be a better thing for you to go to Howard.

You'd be with your own people, and you might be more suited academically.

" So I come home, I read my note.

I say, "Mama, I'm goin' to DePauw.

" She said, "All right.

Then we'll take you.

" PHOTOGRAPHER: Beautiful.

(overlapping chatter).

GRADUATE: Yeah, I wanna try.

Could I get a picture with you at some point, Mr., Mr. Jordan?

OFFICIAL: Step right in there.

(inaudible).

GRADUATE: Yes, yes, please.

Thank you very much.

(overlapping chatter) JORDAN: I love this place, DePauw.

While I learned a lot here, I also taught a lot, just by the very fact of my presence.

That's in part because I was the only black student in my class, one of only five enrolled at DePauw at the time.

My roommates were two white Midwesterners.

They were seniors and best friends and planned to room together their senior year.

But when they showed up at 106 Longden Hall, I was already there for freshman orientation week.

When they walked into that room and saw me sitting there, the look on their faces said it all, "What have we gotten ourselves into now?

" They were not hostile or impolite.

We coexisted for three weeks.

Then one night I came in from the library, and they were in the room in deep conversation.

I spoke to them, and one said, "We've been talking about you.

" And I said then, "What have you concluded?

" (laughter).

And they said almost in unison, "We have concluded that you are no different than we are.

You go to sleep at your desk.

You snore."

(laughter).

"You sing in the shower.

You get mail and you get cookies and cakes from home.

You play basketball, and you drink beer and whisky.

" (laughter).

For three years I was the head waiter at Longden Hall.

And when Richard Nixon came in 1956, I was given the honor of serving the head table.

That photograph of me with the pitcher in my hand just over Richard Nixon was a photograph that, years later, President Nixon invited me to the Oval Office.

And my gift to him was to show him that photograph, which he loved.

And he loved it because he said, "Vernon, I was a waiter in college, too.

" He signed the picture, and I said, "Mr.

President, what you need to understand about this photograph is that it was taken when both of us were on our way up.

" JORDAN: I went to law school out of some sense of mission.

I went to the Howard Law School in particular because of its national reputation in civil rights, uh, because of its, uh, Professor Jim Nabrit initiated the person who is now president of the University... MAN: Yeah... JORDAN: Initiated the first schools in civil rights and who, uh, taught me constitutional law which is one of the great privileges of my life.

I get to Howard.

I'm a freshman.

And there's a lecture by Thurgood Marshall.

And I, I cannot tell you what it felt like to walk into the moot courtroom and hear Thurgood Marshall talk.

I knew that I was in the right place.

FAUNTROY: Howard University School of Law, it was a place where the most successful litigation strategy in American legal history was put together.

NAACP Legal Defense Fund with Thurgood Marshall had come through and begun to have a series of victories that led up to Brown.

In the immediate post-Brown period, Vernon Jordan is going to law school, learning how to take these victories that were more than just case studies, but actually a road map for future victories in other places.

JORDAN: All of their dry runs were in the Howard University moot courtroom.

As students we would, during the breaks, stand four feet away so we could hear what they were talkin' about as they assessed the arguments.

And my ultimate experience as a young lawyer, Wiley Branton, who was the lawyer for the Little Rock Nine, moved to my admission to the U.S. Supreme Court.

And when I took my hand down after being sworn in, I looked directly at Thurgood Marshall, and Thurgood Marshall, from the bench of the Supreme Court, winked his eye at me.

My mother said, "That was the laying on of hands.

" I came home out of some sense of mission, feeling that, uh, I'd come back south, I could do something about the problem.

I began my law career working for Donald L. Hollowell, who was then the prominent civil rights lawyer in Atlanta, for $35 a week.

And I didn't go to the office my first day.

I went straight to the Atlanta Municipal Court to get students from the Atlanta Prison Center out of jail.

HUNTER-GAULT: Hollowell went where angels feared to tread.

You know, you look back over it now.

But I mean, you're going into a place where people have been hung by the Ku Klux Klan, and their houses have been burned.

It was dangerous.

HOLLOWELL: Uh, you have asked me, what other plans do we have in connection with Reverend Martin Luther King's release.

Of course, this would depend upon whether or not the court granted our motion to vacate.

JORDAN: The first case that I was involved in with Don Hollowell was eight weeks after law school.

I was with Nathaniel Johnson the night before he went to the electric chair, because there were no black lawyers in Augusta, Georgia, in 1959.

GATES: When was the first time I ever saw Vernon Jordan?

I saw Vernon Jordan on a black and white TV set when I was, eleven years old.

There was a tall, handsome black man walking next to a young black coed.

He was escorting her through this, a wall of hostility.

HUNTER-GAULT: I didn't get involved in civil rights until my senior year in high school.

They came to our school and asked our principal that, did they have any top students who could apply to the local white college.

Hamilton Holmes was the first in our class.

He wanted to be a doctor.

I looked at the curriculum.

I wanted to be a journalist.

And that was the beginning of our journey, not necessarily to be pioneers, but to realize our dreams.

We had won, and we were gonna claim our victory.

It was my mother, Vernon and me, and, of course, we were surrounded by all of the reporters and students yelling ugly racial epithets.

Vernon was very serious and very determined.

So I didn't pay much attention to him when we first met.

He was focused.

He was focused on his mission.

FAUNTROY: He understood that there were television cameras that were there recording.

And what we know, broadcasting images around the country on the nightly news tells a story that is difficult to ignore.

I'm here, I have agency, I have humanity, and I have dignity.

And you all are going to have to deal with that, because I'm not going anywhere.

HUNTER-GAULT: We were focused.

I'm here to do a job, and I'm gonna get this job done.

All of the rest of that just faded away, to go forth, go forward, and get the job done.

JORDAN: In 1961 the NAACP offered me a job as the Georgia field director.

I was organizing, and I was rehabilitating branches that had gone down.

My first year my membership results were the best in the South.

I had the same job in Georgia that Medgar had in Mississippi.

But he was older than me, and he had been doing the job much longer.

Medgar and I became very good friends.

MAN: Why do you feel that it is important for Negroes to vote?

EVERS: For example, here in Jackson, there is not one single Negro policeman.

Uh, there are some 60,000 Negroes who live in the, in Jackson, Mississippi, with no, uh, Negroes represented on the police force.

JORDAN: Very charismatic and totally unafraid.

EVERS: I have had a number of threatening calls, people calling me, saying that they were gonna kill me, uh, saying that they were gonna blow my home up, and, uh, saying that I only had a few hours to live.

JORDAN: That spring I called him up, and I said, "Medgar, I'm leaving.

I'm gonna work for the Southern Regional Council.

" He said, "Vernon, that's what you should do.

But I can't leave.

" And then he was assassinated.

REPORTER: NAACP official Medgar Evers was shot and killed by a sniper.

Evers, a 37-year-old father of three and a veteran, was buried in Arlington National Cemetery.

JORDAN: Medgar knew what was in store, and left us too early.

(disco music plays) In 1970 I was offered the job as executive director of the United Negro College Fund, which meant I had to leave Atlanta and move to New York.

Achievement, success, record, making a real difference in the life of this nation, is a story of colleges within the United Negro College Fund.

When I got to New York, my most enthusiastic and committed mentor was Whitney M. Young.

Whitney has never gotten his just due.

He revitalized the Urban League.

YOUNG: My only plea is that, if we must polarize in this country, then let us no longer polarize on the basis of race or religion or economic status.

But let us polarize on the basis of decent people versus indecent people, between people... JORDAN: The black power structure in New York didn't like it that Whitney came from Atlanta to take over the Urban League, and they were not consulted.

And then this kid comes from Atlanta to take over the College Fund and raise more money than had ever been raised.

MAN: The United Negro College Fund has helped black students help get an education.

But today there just isn't enough money, and tomorrow...

PROFESSOR: We're sorry, but this course has been canceled.

MAN: Please don't let this happen.

A mind is a terrible thing to waste.

JORDAN: A year after I got to New York to run the College Fund, Whitney Young died.

And I was asked to be his successor.

No man can enter lightly upon the task of carrying the mission to which Whitney Young brought such unique wisdom, effectiveness, and grace.

I accept, not because of the honor of succeeding a great man, but out of a deep sense of duty and responsibility to use whatever talents and abilities I have to help black people in America achieve their rightful and just place in this society.

My approach will be my approach.

And, uh, whatever, uh, however that may be interpreted in terms of whether it's moderate or, or radical or conservative, that's not for me to judge.

It is for the Urban League board, the Urban League constituency, and black people and white people generally to, to, to, to judge what kind of leadership that will be.

FAUNTROY: The National Urban League is a civil rights organization.

And over time it added to its advocacy to be involved in lobbying on public policy changes.

JORDAN: I was the first non-social worker who headed up the Urban League.

I thought like I was trained, like a lawyer.

CROWD: Off the pigs!

GROUP: No more brothers in jail.

CROWD: Off the pigs!

GROUP: Revolution has come.

CROWD: Off the pigs!

GROUP: Revolution has come.

JORDAN: When I arrived at the Urban League, Martin Luther King, Jr. had been dead for three years.

The NAACP had lost some of its clout, taking a back seat to the strident tone of the black power movement.

GROUP: Black is beautiful!

JORDAN: There was the notion that there had to be a leader of the black community.

What single individual would step up and take the mantle of Martin Luther King, Jr.?

This was very much in the mind set of the times.

BROWN: Can black people survive culturally and physically in America?

Can we ever be a part of the existing white institutions?

Or should we be developing our own?

Can we as a people develop solutions to our dilemma fast enough to counteract the present rate of growth of the oppressive factors built into this society by institutional white racism?

As black people, we must deal with the issues.

Is it too late?

["A Black Journal Special" theme music plays].

BROWN: Tonight on "Black Journal", Reverend Ralph Abernathy, Imamu Amiri Baraka, Reverend Albert Clay, Mr. Roy Innis, Mr. Vernon Jordan.

CLAY: Most of the panel is integrationists which is outmoded and obsolete and will tend to destroy black people.

We have got to, black people have got to drive integrationists, integration organizations, the black churches and integrationists to say, we have got to drive them out of the black community.

BROWN: All right.

CLAY: We can't put together a program that's dependent on dealing with black integration.

BROWN: May we... CLAY: They are the enemy.

BROWN: All right, Mr. Jordan was trying to make a point.

And then Mr. Gregory.

JORDAN: I think that Reverend Clay don't understand that the, that those of us who do take a position on an open pluralistic society, that we're not going out of the black community.

We're not gonna be run out.

And that we're there just like the tree planted by the rivers of water.

BROWN: I only have one more response.

INNIS: Whether, you know, Mr. Jordan and the other assimilationists, integrationists, would be willing to refrain from speaking exclusively for the black community.

To recognize there are two goals and agree for us to function and possibly have a peaceful coexistence to reinforce each other's goals.

The problem is the integrationists in conspiracy to silence the true aspiration and goal of most black people which is that of self-determination.

BROWN: Is there a common ground then that anyone can agree upon for the advancement of all blacks?

CLAY: Yeah.

To get some power.

Uh, either we escape from powerlessness and get power to control our own destiny, or we end up the victims of genocide.

JORDAN: I think that that would be a consensus theme if that's possible, that, uh, a goal of political and economic empowerment on the part of black people is, is a, is a desirable goal, and hopefully an achievable one.

I think that the difference comes... MAN: How you get there... JORDAN: How it relates to, as it relates to how we get there and the means by which it ought to be achieved.

Black people have to say... FAUNTROY: Whitney Young and Vernon Jordan were very different people.

Vernon Jordan took the baton and moved the Urban League into new spaces in terms of lobbying and in particular interacting with corporate America, and sitting on corporate boards.

GATES: Do you know how hard it was for him to be the first Negro to be seated at those boards, surrounded by people primarily with Ivy League educations, who didn't grow up knowing any black people?

CLINTON: He wanted to know how America worked and how people that he thought were otherwise decent people could be supporting politics and policies that he deeply disagreed with, and whether there were some way to bridge the divide.

And he always tried to find some way to do that.

BUFFETT: He has an almost unique position, because people talk to him because he's smart, but they talk to him even more because he's wise.

If I ask Vernon for a piece of advice, uh, I'm going to get something that's meaningful.

LEE: Vernon is a true role model for all of us.

I think, if you are lucky enough to have Vernon on your board, he does talk to you about, how do you promote young executives of color.

And he's also, uh, been the voice of reason or conscience for presidents.

JORDAN: Presidential wall.

And every president since Lyndon Johnson is here.

Here I am with Johnson.

President Nixon right after I succeeded Whitney Young as the head of the Urban League.

Well, we got along all right.

I said to him, "You say something I don't like, I will tell you, publicly.

" And that was our deal.

Gerald Ford, President Reagan, Bill Clinton.

And here I am with my fellow Georgian, Jimmy Carter.

Jimmy Carter of Georgia came to Urban League meetings proudly wearing our equality pin in his lapel.

In the short time he has been President, the sad fact is that the list of what the administration has not done far exceeds its list of accomplishments.

(applause).

Black people didn't vote for Nixon, and black people didn't vote for Ford.

(applause).

They voted, they voted for Jimmy Carter, and it is not enough for President Carter to be just a little bit better than his predecessors.

(applause).

Sometime in, uh, 1977, when I keynoted the Urban League, and he said to me, "You could have told me that in, in the Oval.

" And I said, "If you think that, you don't understand your job or mine.

" He understood, I think, ultimately my role as an advocate for black people.

Black people and the whole process of desegregation and integration are always the ones that have to give up something.

And, uh, I think that black people generally across this country, especially in the urban cities, are a little weary of having to give up for the, for the comforts of, of the majority.

The true answer, it seems to me... ADAMS: I went with him on several speaking engagements.

In each of those cities he made very strong arguments about economic equality.

JORDAN: The lesson here, my friends, is that members of the white business power structure are bad politicians.

They fail to understand that blacks will no longer be junior partners in the old alliance.

Not only... ADAMS: And he was strong.

His voice was strong, and he was powerful, and he was delivering.

I mean, he was bringin' it.

JORDAN: What you have to understand, Mr. Hyde, is, you see, I do not trust white people in the South with my rights.

Masses of black people... ADAMS: But I said to him, I sad, "Dad, you know, don't you get worried saying stuff like this to all these white people?

" He said, "No.

You gotta say it.

You gotta, you gotta tell it.

" And I said, "Wow.

" I mean, it's just, you know, "Don't you worry somebody's gonna try to hurt you?

" Two weeks later... JORDAN: I did not know what had happened.

I did not know why it happened.

When I was on the ground bleeding, I was saying, "I have to be in Houston tomorrow.

" I did not know that I was not going to Houston until I woke up after the operation.

ADAMS: We got to the hospital.

He just had so many, uh, tubes and wires all around him.

But they let us go up and, you know, touch his hand.

And I stroked his head and told him I was there.

JORDAN: I did not know what my future was.

And when I was in the hospital for 98 days, I was only thinking about one thing, "What do I have to do to get out of here?

" CLINTON: In 1980 I lost in the Reagan landslide.

It was a tough year for me and, uh, Hillary, and a much tougher year for Vernon.

That's when he was shot.

Sometime in early 1981 he called Hillary, and he said, "You got any grits down there?

" (laughs).

And she said, "What do you mean?

Did you mean New York or Washington?

" She's, "No.

In Arkansas.

You got any grits?

" And he says, "I, I need some.

" She said, "Well, when do you want 'em?

" He said, "How's tomorrow mornin'?

" He flew all the way to Arkansas, because I was the youngest ex-governor in decades in American history.

And he didn't want me to give up.

It was like the, "Life for me ain't been no crystal stairs," like the old Langston Hughes poem.

You know, it was the, he said, "It's just a splinter on the stair.

" He said, "You know, you gotta keep climbing the stairs.

" JORDAN: We're here at Akin Gump Strauss Hauer and Feld where I have been a senior partner, uh, since, um, since January of 1982.

CHENAULT: The way I think about it is, Vernon was one of the first crossover artists at that time, someone moving from a civil rights organization to a corporate law firm.

That was a first.

MONROE: A lot of people thought your decision to leave the Urban League now was deserting an important cause just when it needed your type of leadership, uh, the most.

What do you say to those who think you're abandoning a vital cause when you've served all your adult life in order to go make money?

JORDAN: Well, uh, go and make money, that's, uh, that's your own view of it.

Uh, I believe that ten years is long enough in this particular capacity.

Uh, I do not believe that there is ever a good time to leave.

Uh, nor do I believe that, uh, any one individual is absolutely indispensable to progress.

So why do I, I do not view my resignation, uh, as abandonment.

I view it as a refreshing interlude for an institution, uh, to get new leadership, fresh leadership.

I also view it as a professional and personal opportunity for myself to pursue a course of, of work that is exciting, that is intellectually challenging, and that will be rewarding to me.

GATES: We are all looking this way for the revolution.

And Vernon is over here in corporate America, making the revolution.

CHENAULT: I believe his movement to a corporate law firm brought the civil rights movement to the next level.

PIERCE: One of the factors that I took into account when I interviewed, um, with firms was whether there was an African American in the firm that was of note.

Because I thought, just like many people before me, that I would stand on the shoulders of that other already successful individual.

Um, and this firm had Vernon.

If you think about what the movement was about, equality, equal opportunity, I look at Vernon, and I think, "Boy, that's, that's what we want to achieve.

" JORDAN: That have been coming since 1982, and I'm almost 83 years old.

I like it.

(laughs).

It's very simple.

The thought of retirement does not excite me.

MAN: Yeah I wish he'd slow down a little bit, actually.

(laughs).

I think his schedule and his desire to keep at it every day fuels him.

JORDAN: Diplomatic row here.

Now this street right here to the left, at the end of that street on the right hand side is where the Clinton's have a house.

Now this house right here, that's where Kelly Ann Conway lives.

WOMAN: Did she come say "Hi" to you?

JORDAN: I welcomed her to the neighborhood and said "hello" and all that.

(fire crackles) Sometimes when I'm sittin' down here at the fire I think, "This is a long way from University Homes."

The housing project where I grew up.

Long way.

JACOBS: Vernon joined Lazard in January of 2000.

It was really fortunate, because when Vernon arrived the office that he took was literally next to mine.

And I had the great fortune of just being close to him whenever he was here which was four days a week.

He kind of adopted me.

And he became a real friend obviously, but also, very importantly, a mentor to me over that whole period of time.

JORDAN: There he is.

(overlapping chatter).

MAN: Thank you.

JORDAN: This is what it's all about here.

LEWIS: My assistant will say, "Vernon is coming up to see you.

" Well, I know that will mean fifteen minutes from now, because Vernon will stop and engage, uh, with everybody.

Vernon knows something about almost everybody that he passes in the halls.

And he has a word or two to say to everybody.

MAN: The Washington Post has that too.

KOOPERSMITH: I would not be sitting in the chair as chair of this law firm if it was not for Vernon Jordan.

I mean, I have, uh, zero doubt that his mentorship is how I got here.

In 1981 there were 23,000 of us at the Philadelphia Civic Center, and he was my commencement speaker when I graduated from the University of Pennsylvania.

And fast-forward fifteen years later, I joined Akin Gump and attended my first partner retreat, and saw him across the room, and walked straight across and said, "Mr.

Jordan, you will not remember me from the 20,000, 23,000 people at the Philadelphia Civic Center.

But I remember every word you said.

" And Vernon being Vernon, said, "Young lady, I don't know who you are.

I don't know what your name is.

But you are my new best friend"" And it was true.

He shepherded me through that meeting, introduced me to everyone of importance at the firm, and here we are.

CHENAULT: I very proudly hold myself out as a mentee of Vernon Jordan.

In 1984 Vernon was on the board of directors at American Express, and evidently my name came up at the board meeting as someone who had very high potential.

And so Vernon called me and said, "Ken, this is Vernon Jordan.

" And he asked me if I would come to breakfast.

And the breakfast, it lasted for five hours.

And he talked to me about my aspirations, but he also told me his story.

And it was wonderful and certainly my journey in the corporate world I encountered prejudice, and I encountered skepticism and whether I belonged.

But I think the mentality that I had was very much a mentality that I had a right to be there.

And I was going to push forward and deal with obstacles because of leaders like Vernon Jordan who had demonstrated throughout their life that obstacles were to be overcome.

JORDAN: The feeling is, I had a lot of help.

And so I'm here to help others if I can.

CLINTON: I never saw him turn down an opportunity to try to help a young person who needed help, including to give good advice.

So there are, quite apart from all these jobs he's held and all these board positions he's held and all these things he's done, and the fact that he was very close to me, so close that he turned down my plea to him to become attorney general.

I said, "Vern, you can become the first black attorney general.

" He said, "Yeah.

" He said, "And I know exactly what the job is.

" And he said, "What else, what's gonna happen when you need somebody to just talk to you?

" And he said, "I, I don't want to be in the government.

I want to be your friend.

" JORDAN: When I testified in the impeachment trial of Bill Clinton, my testimony was not put in the record, because the Republicans kept it out.

And here is my testimony that I have framed.

"What was taught to be by my mother is that the only thing that I own totally and completely is my integrity.

And my integrity has been on trial here.

The President is my friend.

He was before this happened.

He is now, and he will be when this is over.

" CLINTON: He's a fast friend.

He doesn't quit on people that he loves, even if they fail.

MAN: Do I put the syrup in the fridge?

WOMAN: Huh, just put it there.

MAN: Okay.

(phone ringing) JORDAN: Hello... What do you got to tell me?

Do you have a telephone number for the Paris ambassador?

Yeah, well, I'll have Doug handle that.

WOMAN: Uh, what do you have?

MAN: Some railroads, money.

How's that?

WOMAN: I'll get you a Monopoly... JORDAN: I've been here twenty years.

I don't own it.

I rent it.

I think you only own one house.

And if the pipes burst in January, it's not my problem.

(laughs).

That's right.

It's not my problem.

I know that I have been blessed with extraordinary mentors in my career.

Hey, how are you?

I am also very certain that there is no substitute for a commitment to excellence, hard work, and sacrifice.

I'm pretty sure that that is, in part, the explanation for whatever I may have achieved.

But I didn't get here by myself.

NARRATOR: If you mi ssed a moment, you can watch this fi lm online and learn more about Vernon Jordan by visiting PB S.org/vernonjordan.

And join the co nversation online with #VernonJordanPBS.

NARRATOR: Funding for "Vernon Jordan: Make it Plain" was provided by Ford Foundation Ju st Films.

And by the Andrew W. Mellon foundation.

NARRATOR: You're watching PBS.