Politics & Power Quote by Barbara Jordan

Jordan’s line is spare, almost deceptively polite: education as a “key,” empowerment as the door it opens. Coming from a politician who moved through segregated schools, the civil-rights era, and the institutions of Congress, the metaphor isn’t motivational poster fluff. It’s a statement about access to the machinery of America - who gets to understand it, navigate it, and ultimately redesign it.

The phrasing matters. “Remains” is a quiet rebuke to every fad solution that treats inequality as a branding problem or a temporary market glitch. Jordan is arguing durability: for all the talk of charisma, patronage, or protest alone, the lever that consistently changes life chances is still education. And she pairs “economic and political” on purpose, refusing the comfortable myth that you can separate bread-and-butter opportunity from civic power. A better paycheck without political agency leaves you vulnerable; political rights without economic footing can become symbolic, easily stalled by backlash or bureaucracy.

There’s subtext, too: education isn’t only personal betterment, it’s collective defense. Literacy in law, history, and institutions makes it harder for demagogues to sell people their own disenfranchisement. Jordan’s era saw how quickly rights could be diluted through technicalities - districts redrawn, tests administered, procedures weaponized. Calling education a key is also a warning: if you don’t hold it, someone else controls the lock.