Black History

First African-American Resident Physician at VUMC

THE TENNESSEE TRIBUNE — Harold Jordan, MD was the first African-American resident physician at Vanderbilt University Medical Center.

Published

6 years ago

March 8, 2019

Oakland Post

By Tribune Staff

Dr. Harold Willoughby Jordan is the second grandson of Dr. John Henry Jordan and was born in the house in Newnan that John built. Harold was raised there in the shadow of his grandfather. He spent his childhood playing with John’s old medical bag, surrounded by his medical books and lasting legacy. From a young age, it was Harold’s desire to become a doctor, and he knew his parents expected it of him.

Harold was educated in Newnan and finished high school there before relocating to Atlanta to attend Morehouse College. He graduated from Morehouse with a bachelor’s degree in Biology in 1958 and then followed in his grandfather’s and great-grandfather’s footsteps by enrolling as a student at Meharry Medical College. Harold graduated in 1962 and completed one year of a residency in internal medicine before deciding to pursue psychiatry instead. He was the first black medical resident on record at Vanderbilt University.

After completing his education, Harold became a faculty member at Meharry Medical College and served as Chairman of the Department of Psychiatry for 18 years as well as Acting Dean of the School of Medicine. He was loyal to Meharry and only left in the 1970’s to serve as the first black Commissioner of Mental Health for the State of Tennessee. A state building, the Harold W. Jordan Habilitation Center, is named in his honor.

February 8, 2019 marked the launch of the newest of the named lectures in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences – the Dr. Harold Jordan Diversity and Inclusion Lecture.

Harold Jordan, MD was the first African-American resident physician at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, completing a general psychiatry residency between 1964 and 1967. Dr. Jordan’s history with the Department of Psychiatry and Vanderbilt University School of Medicine was outlined in the article “Hidden Figure” from the Summer 2017 issue of Vanderbilt Medicine Magazine.

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, and 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 it’s fair to say that the achievement has received little fanfare 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 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.

The interview went well, and Orr offered Jordan one of the three residency slots in Psychiatry that year.

But, Jordan recalls, Orr did more than offer him a position.

“Dr. Orr was very encouraging, accepting and protective,” Jordan said, clearly recalling a time when not all institutions exhibited those attitudes toward African-Americans. “He made it clear that I would be accepted. I felt secure. I knew the path was clear for me.”

Jordan’s family roots in medicine are deep; both his great-grandfather and grandfather were physicians who trained at Meharry. When he was growing up in Newnan, Georgia, just south of Atlanta, he heard family tales of his medical forbears and was inspired to follow their footsteps.

“I had wanted to do that since I heard about them,” he said.

Despite the low-key nature with which Jordan’s residency was handled, the groundbreaking nature of what was going on would have been known to all of the participants.

Vanderbilt’s first African-American student, Joseph Johnson Jr., was admitted to the Divinity School in 1953, and in 1956 two black law students had been admitted as well. But despite the presence of a few black students on campus, at that time there were no African-American residents at Vanderbilt Hospital, and it would be two more years, 1966, before the Vanderbilt School of Medicine would admit its first African-American student, Levi Watkins Jr.

“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.”

Just as Vanderbilt was changing in that era, so was the country. As it happened, the day after Jordan began his residency at VUMC, July 1, 1964, President Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, mandating an end to discrimination in public accommodations.

Jordan says the faculty and his fellow residents were encouraging and supportive—“My colleagues were fine—there were no problems in Psychiatry”—but the unusual sight for that time of an African-American physician at Vanderbilt sometimes made for awkward misunderstandings.

“I walked into the Emergency Room [for a consult] and somebody thought I was the janitor and said, ‘The trash is over there,’” he remembered.

From across the decades of an honored career in medicine, Jordan, who turned 80 this year, says he has no ill feeling about such slights. “I would laugh at them, like, ‘What are you talking about?’” he said.

After his three years of residency at VUMC, Jordan pursued his academic career at Meharry and his public service career with the State of Tennessee, but also maintained a clinical appointment on the faculty of the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine until 2016.

In a 1971 letter in support of Jordan’s faculty appointment at Vanderbilt, Robert M. Reed, M.D., a Psychiatry faculty member of that era, wrote that, since Jordan was the first black resident to train at Vanderbilt, “his original appointment and subsequent performance were watched and monitored by a great many people as constituting something of a ‘test case.’”

He adds, “If indeed it were a test, then Harold passed it with honors, in my opinion.”

Andre Churchwell, M.D., Chief Diversity Officer for Vanderbilt University Medical Center, senior associate dean for Diversity Affairs, and Levi Watkins Jr. M.D. Chair, professor of Medicine, Biomedical Engineering and Radiology and Radiological Sciences, said that Jordan’s contributions to VUMC are important to remember.

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.”

He is married to Geraldine Crawford Jordan, a Meharry Medical College nursing school graduate. Thy have four children: Harold, Vincent, Karen and Kristi, as well as four grandchildren.

This article originally appeared in The Tennessee Tribune.

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Activism

Oakland Post: Week of October 30 – November 5, 2024

The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of October 30 – November 5, 2024

Published

22 hours ago

November 1, 2024

Oakland Post

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Activism

“Two things can be true at once.” An Afro-Latina Voter Weighs in on Identity and Politics

“As a Puerto Rican I do not feel spoken to in discussions about Latino voters… which is ironic because we are one of the few Latino communities who are also simultaneously American,” Ortiz-Cedeño says. Puerto Ricans born in Puerto Rico, a U.S. territory, have American citizenship by birth but they do not have the right to vote for president if they live on the island. “I think that we miss out on a really interesting opportunity to have a nuanced conversation by ignoring this huge Latino population that is indigenously American.”

Published

3 days ago

October 30, 2024

Oakland Post

Keyanna Ortiz-Cedeño at her graduation from UC Berkeley after receiving her master’s degree in City Regional Planning. Alongside her, are her parents holding a Puerto Rican flag. Courtesy photo.

By Magaly Muñoz

On a sunny afternoon at Los Cilantros Restaurant in Berkeley, California, Keyanna Ortiz-Cedeño, a 27-year-old Afro-Latina with tight curly hair and deep brown skin, stares down at her carne asada tacos, “I’ve definitely eaten more tortillas than plantains over the course of my life,” says Cedeño, who spent her childhood in South Texas, among predominantly Mexican-American Latinos. As she eats, she reflects on the views that American politicians have of Latino voters.

Ortiz-Cedeño, an urban planner who is focused on disaster resilience, homelessness and economic prosperity for people of color, says that political conversations around Latinos tend to shift towards immigration, “I think this ties back into the ways that our perception of ‘Latino’ tends to be Mexican and Central American because so much of our conversation about Latinos is deeply rooted in what’s happening on the border,” she says. “I don’t think that the Afro-Latino vote is frequently considered when we’re talking about the Latino vote in the United States.”

Primarily surrounded by Mexican-Americans while growing up in South Texas, Keyanna participated in many Chicano cultured events, such as being a dama in several quinceñeras. Courtesy photo.

As Ortiz-Cedeño sifts through childhood photos of her as a happy teen dancing with the Mexican ballet folklorico group in high school and as a dama in quinceñeras, she reflects on growing up in South Texas, an area with a large population of white and Mexican-Americans. The Black population was small, and within it, the Afro-Latino population was practically nonexistent.

“It was interesting to try to have conversations with other Latinos in the community because I think that there was a combination of both willful ignorance and a sort of ill intent and effort to try and deny my experience as a Latino,” she says. “There are a lot of folks in Latin America who experience a lot of cognitive dissonance when they think about the existence of Black Latinos in Latin America.

Ortiz-Cedeño comments on the long history of anti-Blackness in Latin America. “Throughout Latin America, we have a really insidious history with erasing Blackness and I think that that has been carried into the Latino American culture and experience,” she says. “People will tell you, race doesn’t exist in Latin America, like we’re all Dominicans, we’re all Puerto Ricans, we’re all Cubans, we’re all Mexicans. If you were to go to the spaces with where people are from and look at who is experiencing the most acute violence, the most acute poverty, the most acute political oppression and marginalization, those people are usually darker. And that’s not by accident, it’s by design.”

Because of the lack of diversity in her Gulf Coast town, as a teenager, despite being the only Spanish-speaker at her job in Walmart, Latinos refused to ask for her help in Spanish.

“Even if monolingual [Spanish-speaking] people would have to speak with me, then they were trying to speak English, even though they could not speak English, versus engaging with me as a Latina,” she says.

“I think that the perception of Latinos in the United States is of a light brown person with long, wavy or straight hair. The perfect amount of curves and the perfect combination of Indigenous and white genes. And very rarely will people also consider that maybe they also have a sprinkle of Blackness in them as well,” she says. “Over 90% of the slave trade went to the Caribbean and Latin America.”

Keyanna as a toddler, holding a whiteboard up with her last name, Ortiz-Cedeño, on it. Courtesy photo.

Ortiz-Cedeño remembers when a Cuban family moved in next door to her in Texas. The teen daughter had blue-eyes, blonde hair and only spoke Spanish, which caused neighboring Latinos to take pause because she didn’t fit the Latino “look” they were used to.

“People didn’t have an option to try and negate her [Latino] identity because they had to acknowledge her for everything that she was,” Ortiz-Cedeño says.

Later on, the girl’s cousins, a Black, Spanish-speaking Cuban family, came into town and again locals were forced to reckon with the fact that not all Latinos fit a certain criteria.

“I think it forced everybody to have to confront a reality that they knew in the back of their mind but didn’t want to acknowledge at the forefront,” Ortiz-Cedeño says.

Having gone through these experiences as an Afro-Latina, Ortiz-Cedeño says it’s easy for her to understand Kamala Harris’ mixed Indian and Jamaican heritage, “It comes really naturally to accept that she is both Indian and Black. Two things can exist at the same time,” she says. “I had a long term partner for about seven years who was South Indian, from the same state as Kamala Harris, so if we had had a kid, they would look like [Harris],” Ortiz-Cedeño jokingly shares.

She says she can relate to having to walk the road of people only wanting to see Harris as a Black American. The talking point about [Harris] not being Indian or not being Black, just deciding to be Black, is really disingenuous and cheap,” she says.

Ortiz-Cedeño believes that the Harris campaign has not capitalized on the vice president’s mixed identity, which could be vital in bringing together different communities to understand each other on a new level and allow for improvements on America’s racial dynamics.

Keyanna co-managed a recovery center with her mother after Hurricane Harvey. They packed essentials, such as diapers, food, and water for families in need. Courtesy photo.

As she rushes into a Berkeley Urban Planning Commission meeting straight out of Ashby BART station, Ortiz-Cedeño explains her love for talking about all things infrastructure, homelessness, and healthcare access. The topics can be dry for many, she admits, but in the end, she gets to address long-standing systemic issues that often hinder opportunities for growth for people of color.

Having lived through the effects of Hurricane Katrina as a child, with the flooding and mass migration of Louisiana residents into Texas, Ortiz-Cedeño was radicalized into issues of displacement, emergency mitigation, and housing at nine years old.

“I remember my principal had to carry her students on her shoulders and swim us home because so many parents were trying to drive in and get their kids from school [due to] the flooding that was pushing their cars away,” she recalls.

Her family relocated to Houston soon after Katrina, only to be met with a deadly Hurricane Rita. They wound up in a mega-shelter, where Ortiz-Cedeño says she heard survivors stories of the unstable conditions in New Orleans and beyond, which got her wondering about urban planning, a term she wasn’t familiar with at the time.

“I think that when you put people in the context of the things that were happening in this country around [these hurricanes], a lot of us started to really think seriously about who gets to make decisions about the urban environment,” she adds.

Watching the heavy displacement of disaster survivors, hearing stories of her Navy veteran father’s chronic homelessness, and her own mother’s work and activism with homeless communities in the non–profit sector put her on the path to progressive politics and solutions, she says. After attending college on the East Coast- where she says she was finally recognized as a Puerto Rican- and working in housing, economic development, and public policy, she returned to California to earn a Master’s in City Regional Planning from UC Berkeley.

Young Keyanna volunteering at a beach clean up. Activism and giving back to her community has always been a key part of her upbringing. Courtesy photo.

Her vast interest in the urban success of underserved communities even took her abroad to Israel and Palestine when she was an undergraduate college student. “I’ve seen the border with Gaza, I’ve had homestays with farmers in the West Bank,” she says. “For me personally, Palestine is an issue that is really close to the heart.”

“I have a very intimate understanding of the conflict and I’m very disturbed by the way in which the [Democratic] party has not been willing to engage in what I would perceive to be a thoughtful enough conversation about the conflict,” Ortiz-Cedeño says. “The issue of Palestine is going to be one of those that is a make or break issue for her. It has not been one that has been taken seriously enough by the party.”

Ortiz-Cedeño is not under the illusion that one candidate will address every policy issue she wants to see tackled by the president. But she believes it’s better than what former President Donald Trump has to offer.

“Trump has made it very clear what his intentions are with Palestine, and what his relationship is with [Benjamin] Netanyahu,” Ortiz-Cedeño says. “I understand the political strategy that many people are trying to engage in by withholding their vote, but I would also encourage them to re-engage in the political process.”

Casting her vote for Harris is a decision grounded in calculation rather than outright support. “I think I can vote in this election in order to have harm reduction… because I have deep care and concern for other communities that are going to be impacted by a Trump presidency,” Ortiz-Cedeño says.

She also hopes that American politicians will consider the nuance and perspective that Afro-Latinos bring to the table when it comes to politics, policy, and race in America, “When we don’t think expansively about who is Latino in the United States, the breadth of Latino experiences in the United States, we miss an opportunity to capture how diverse Latinos interests are politically.”

This story was reported in collaboration with PBS VOCES: Latino Vote 2024.

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Art

A Prolific Painter: Artist and Advocate Lois Mailou Jones

Lois Mailou Jones was a prominent African American artist whose career spanned more than seven decades, from the Harlem Renaissance to the modern art movement. She was not only a prolific painter but also an influential educator, bridging cultural gaps and challenging stereotypes through her vibrant and diverse works.

Published

4 days ago

October 29, 2024

Oakland Post

Courtesy of National Archives, Washington, D.C.

By Tamara Shiloh

Her unique journey of self-expression, dedication to art, and advocacy for African American and African themes made her a crucial figure in the evolution of American art.

Jones was born on Nov. 3, 1905, in Boston. Raised in an intellectual and supportive family, she demonstrated an early interest in art, encouraged by her mother, who believed in the importance of creativity. Lois studied at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, where she faced racial challenges but persisted in pursuing her passion.

Her pursuit of higher education led her to the prestigious Design Art School, where she perfected her skills in textile design. Later, Jones attended Harvard University and received further training at the Académie Julian in Paris. This European experience greatly influenced her style and broadened her perspective on art.

Jones’s career began in textile design, creating works that were used by leading textile companies. However, her true passion was painting. During the Harlem Renaissance, she moved away from textile design to focus on fine art, exploring themes that reflected her heritage and the African diaspora.

Her early works were influenced by European Post-Impressionism, featuring landscapes and still life, but Jones’s style evolved over time. After spending time in Haiti, she was deeply inspired by Caribbean culture, and her palette became more vivid, her subject matter more symbolic. The influence of African and Caribbean culture is evident in her later works, where she used bright colors and geometric patterns to convey the spirit and stories of the people she encountered.

Her contributions to African American art were significant during a time when Black artists struggled for recognition. She often focused on themes of African heritage, pride, and unity, blending African illustrations and portraits with Western artistic techniques to create a unique visual language that celebrated Black culture.

She was also a dedicated educator. She began her teaching career at Palmer Memorial Institute in North Carolina and later became a professor at Howard University in Washington, D.C., where she taught for almost 50 years. Through her teaching, she influenced generations of young Black artists, encouraging them to explore and express their cultural heritage through art.

In the 1930s and 1940s, she worked to exhibit her work alongside other Black artists, helping to create a platform for voices that had long been excluded from mainstream galleries.

Recognition and Legacy

Jones achieved significant recognition throughout her lifetime, both in the United States and internationally. She exhibited her work across the globe, including in Paris, Africa, and the Caribbean.

Jones continued painting until her death in 1998, leaving behind a rich legacy of artistic achievements and contributions to art education. She broke boundaries by celebrating Black identity and heritage at a time when these themes were often marginalized.