Dr. Harold W. Jordan transitioned on Thursday, December 26, 2024. Articles have been written about him in many publications, including The Atlantic, The Tennessean, and the Organization of American Historians. During his tenure as the first Black Commissioner of Mental Health for the state of Tennessee, he accomplished the rare feat of ensuring that every single mental health facility in the state was accredited. To honor his accomplishments, state officials named a building for him: The Harold Jordan Habilitation Center. He was also the first Black resident at Vanderbilt University Medical Center.
In recent years, Vanderbilt Medical Center has established an award and an annual lecture in his honor, the Harold Jordan Lecture celebrating Diversity, Inclusion, and Social Justice. He also worked at Meharry Medical College, where he chaired the department of psychiatry for 18 years and served as the acting dean of the School of Medicine. Jordan is also a recipient of many awards, including one from the National Medical Association and Meharry Medical College’s President’s Award, as well as Meharry’s Humanism in Clinical Medicine Award. He also served on the Martin Methodist College Board of Trustees and was a Major and Lieutenant Colonel in the Tennessee Army National Guard and the U.S. Army Reserve, in addition to all the work he has done to help people in Nashville.
Harold Jordan, M.D., has had a distinguished medical career that includes many highlights, including being chair of Psychiatry at Meharry Medical College, his medical alma mater, and serving as acting dean of the School of Medicine at Meharry as well. Besides his academic career, Jordan was devoted to improving mental health care for the public through governmental service. He was Assistant Commissioner for Psychiatric Services and, following that, Commissioner of Mental Health and Mental Retardation for the state of Tennessee. He performed those jobs with such distinction that the state named a building in his honor on the campus of Clover Bottom Developmental Center, the state facility for people with severe intellectual disabilities, which closed in 2016.
But a lesser-known part of Jordan’s professional life is his role as a pioneer at Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC). In 1964, he became the first African American resident physician at VUMC. It’s fair to say that he began that groundbreaking achievement with little fanfare, and the achievement has received little recognition since. Reached at his home in California, where he moved after retirement, Jordan recalled interviewing with William F. Orr Jr., M.D., who was chair of Psychiatry at Vanderbilt from 1947 to 1969. “Dr. Lloyd Elam arranged for me to meet Dr. Orr,” he said. With bemused understatement, and maybe the hint of a chuckle, he added, “Obviously, that was very good for me.” Elam, who later served as President of Meharry, was on the Psychiatry faculty at that institution and recommended that Jordan, who had already done an internship year at Meharry in Internal Medicine, consider a slot at Vanderbilt because, at the time, Meharry did not offer a residency in Psychiatry.
Andre Churchwell, M.D., Chief Diversity Officer for VUMC, senior associate dean for Diversity Affairs, and Levi Watkins Jr. M.D. Chair, said that Jordan’s contributions to VUMC are important to remember. “He paved the way for everyone who came after him,” Churchwell said. “To be an African American resident in a sea of white residents at a Southern medical institution, I would call him a true Robinson Crusoe.” A 1967 Psychiatry departmental group photo makes Churchwell’s point. It shows 40 or so people lined up around the traditional entrance to the School of Medicine, and Jordan is indeed the only African American in a sea of white faces. Given the varieties of reactions to Jordan’s presence and his role at the Medical Center in the mid-1960s, Churchwell added, “The fact that he was studying psychiatry probably helped him.”
For his part, Jordan says his time at Vanderbilt was important to him, both personally and professionally. “It was a very positive influence,” he said. “I just felt very supported at both Meharry and Vanderbilt. I felt blessed to have had that experience in Psychiatry.”
