Daughter of Hamilton Jordan to appear at Albany book signings

ALBANY — Kathleen Jordan, the daughter of former White House Chief of Staff Hamilton Jordan, will take part in book signing events in Albany — the city where her father was raised — Thursday and Friday.

A TV writer/director who now lives in Los Angeles, Kathleen Jordan will sign copies of her father’s book, “A Boy From Georgia: Coming of Age in the Segregated South,” which she edited, Thursday at the Albany Museum of Art from 3 p.m.-7 p.m. and Friday at the Albany Civil Rights Institute from 11:30 a.m.-1:30 p.m.

Hors d’oeuvres and a cash bar will be available at the AMA gathering, while a light lunch will be provided at the Civil Rights Institute event.

A 1962 graduate of Albany High School who later completed studies at the University of Georgia, Hamilton Jordan is credited with creating the strategy that catapulted former Gov. Jimmy Carter, at the time relatively unknown nationally, into the White House as the country’s 39th president in 1976. Carter, of Plains, has said of Jordan, who died in 2008 of cancer, “No other human being has affected my career more profoundly nor more beneficially than Hamilton Jordan.”

Neither Kathleen Jordan, now 27, nor her younger sibling Alex, who at 23 has followed his father’s passion for politics by working with a Washington lobbying firm, had visited Albany before they came here in September to visit their father’s childhood Albany home and to plan the book-signing events. Older brother Hamilton Jr., a 31-year-old San Francisco attorney, said he was too young to remember his last visit to the community their father called home.

A number of local residents, however, remember Jordan.

“I lived on Third Avenue and he lived on Fourth, so we were bicycle buddies,” Paul Wallace, who also was part of the AHS class of ‘62, said. “We were great friends and had a great life here in Albany. I felt it was a wonderful, wonderful place back then and still is today.

“Once we all left the University of Georgia, we kind of went our separate ways with our careers and didn’t have much of a chance to stay in contact. I’m really looking forward to seeing Kathleen at the book signings.”

Tina Harden, who is a marketing specialist with the Albany-based Flint Equipment family of businesses, said that she and Hamilton Jordan became close friends, chiefly because their parents were best friends.

“Hamilton grew up across the alley from us, so we were very close growing up,” Harden said. “I can’t wait to read his book to see if it is as much fun reading about (growing up in Albany) as it was living it.”

Civil Rights Institute Director Frank Wilson said he’s excited to host one of the two book signings.

“Being selected as one of two sites for this event, I think, shows that the Civil Rights Institute is being embraced by the entire community; it’s not seen as a ‘black facility,’ which was one of my goals when I became director,” Wilson said. “We’re really honored to host this book-signing about a very prominent man who, as you read the book, you see emerging from that boy from Georgia whose eyes were opened to a greater sense of time, place and history.

“This is very much a book about Albany from the viewpoint of an Albanian. That gives it much more legitimacy. I think it shows how he emerged from that boy from Georgia holding a Confederate battle flag to (Carter’s) chief of staff and beyond.”

Those unable to attend either book-signing but who want to obtain copies of “A Boy From Georgia” may call (229) 888-0013, email [email protected] or visit www.aboyfromgeorgia.com.