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

Books for Ghana

Published

5 hours ago

December 22, 2024

Oakland Post

Min. Rauna Thurston, Chief Mpuntuhene Afua Ewusiwa I

By Min. Rauna Thurston, Chief Mpuntuhene Afua Ewusiwa I

My travels to Afrika began in June 2022, on a tour led by Prof. Manu Ampim, Director of the organization Advancing The Research. I was scheduled to become an ordained Minister by Wo’se Community of the Sacred African Way. It was vital that my feet touch the soil of Kemet and my spirit connect with the continent’s people before ordination.

Since 2022, I’ve made six trips to Afrika. During my travels, I became a benefactor to Abeadze State College (ASC) in Abeadze Dominase, Ghana, originally founded by Daasebre Kwebu Ewusi VII, Paramount Chief of Abeadze Traditional Area and now run by the government. The students there were having trouble with English courses, which are mandatory. The Ghanaian Minister of Education endorsed a novel written by 18-year-old female Ghanaian first-time writer, Nhyira Esaaba Essel, titled Black Queen Sceptre. The idea was that if the students had something more interesting to read, it would evoke a passion for reading; this seemed reasonable to me. Offer students something exciting and imaginative, combined with instructors committed to their success and this could work.

The challenge is how to acquire 800 books?!

I was finishing another project for ASC, so my cash was thin and I was devoid of time to apply for annual grants. I sat on my porch in West Oakland, as I often do, when I’m feeling for and connecting to my ancestors. On quiet nights, I reminisce about the neighborhood I grew up in. Across the street from my house was the house that my Godfather, Baba Dr. Wade Nobles and family lived in, which later became The Institute for the Advanced Study of Black Family Life & Culture (IASBFLC). Then, it came to me…ancestors invited me to reach out to The Association of Black Psychologists – Bay Area Chapter (ABPsi-Bay Area)! It was a long shot but worth it!

I was granted an audience with the local ABPsi Board, who ultimately approved funding for the book project with a stipulation that the Board read the book and a request to subsequently offer input as to how the book would be implemented at ASC. In this moment, my memory jet set to my first ABPsi convention around 2002, while working for IASBFLC. Returning to the present, I thought, “They like to think because it feels good, and then, they talk about what to do about what they think about.” I’m doomed.

However, I came to understand why reading the book and offering suggestions for implementation were essential. In short: ABPsi is an organization that operates from the aspirational principles of Ma’at with aims of liberating the Afrikan Mind, empowering the Afrikan character, and enlivening: illuminating the Afrikan spirit. Their request resulted in a rollout of 400 books in a pair-share system. Students checked out books in pairs, thereby reducing our bottom line to half of the original cost because we purchased 50% fewer units. This nuance promoted an environment of Ujima (collective work & responsibility) and traditional Afrikan principles of cooperation and interdependence. The student’s collaborative approach encouraged shared responsibility, not only for the physical book but for each other’s success. This concept was Dr. Lawford Goddard’s, approved by the Board, with Dr. Patricia “Karabo” Nunley at the helm.

We effectively facilitated cross-continent community building! We met the call and provided 400 books for ASC’s students at the call of the Minister of Education. We supported the work of a new African writer whose breakout novel is an action-packed depiction of a young woman steeped in Ghanaian culture who travels to the USA for college, all the while experiencing the twists, turns, and uncertainties that life brings. (A collectible novel for all ages). A proposed future phase of this collaborative project is for ASC students to exchange reflective essays on Black Queen Sceptre with ABPsi Bay Area members.

We got into good trouble. To order Black Queen Sceptre, email esselewurama14@gmail.com.

I became an ordained Minister upon returning from my initial pilgrimage to Afrika. Who would have imagined that my travels to Afrika would culminate in me becoming a citizen of Sierra Leone and recently being named a Chief Mpuntuhene under Daasebre Kwebu Ewusi VII, Paramount Chief of Abeadze Traditional Area in Ghana, where I envision continued collaborations.

Min. Rauna/Chief Mpuntuhene is a member of ABPsi Bay Area, a healing resource committed to providing the Post Newspaper readership with monthly discussions about critical issues in Black Mental Health, Wealth & Wellness. Readers are welcome to join us at our monthly chapter meetings every 3^rd Saturday via Zoom and contact us at bayareaabpsi@gmail.com.

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Arts and Culture

In ‘Affrilachia: Testimonies,’ Puts Blacks in Appalacia on the Map

Published

6 hours ago

December 22, 2024

Oakland Post

Author Chris Aluka. Photo courtesy of Chris Aluka.

By Terri Schlichenmeyer
The Bookworm Sez

An average oak tree is bigger around than two people together can reach.

That mighty tree starts out with an acorn the size of a nickel, ultimately growing to some 80 feet tall, with a canopy of a hundred feet or more across.

And like the new book, “Affrilachia” by Chris Aluka Berry (with Kelly Elaine Navies and Maia A. Surdam), its roots spread wide and wider.

Affriclachia is a term a Kentucky poet coined in the 1990s referring to the Black communities in Appalachia who are similarly referred to as Affrilachians.

In 2016, “on a foggy Sunday morning in March,” Berry visited Affrilachia for the first time by going the Mount Zion AME Zion Church in Cullowhee, North Carolina. The congregation was tiny; just a handful of people were there that day, but a pair of siblings stood out to him.

According to Berry, Ann Rogers and Mae Louise Allen lived on opposite sides of town, and neither had a driver’s license. He surmised that church was the only time the elderly sisters were together then, but their devotion to one another was clear.

As the service ended, he asked Allen if he could visit her. Was she willing to talk about her life in the Appalachians, her parents, her town?

She was, and arrangements were made, but before Barry could get back to Cullowhee, he learned that Allen had died. Saddened, he wondered how many stories are lost each day in mountain communities where African Americans have lived for more than a century.

“I couldn’t make photographs of the past,” he says, “but I could document the people and places living now.”

In doing so he also offers photographs that he collected from people he met in ‘Affrilachia,’ in North Carolina, Georgia, Kentucky, and Tennessee, at a rustic “camp” that was likely created by enslaved people, at churches, and in modest houses along highways.

The people he interviewed recalled family tales and community stories of support, hardship, and home.

Says coauthor Navies, “These images shout without making a sound.”

If it’s true what they say about a picture being worth 1,000 words, then “Affrilachia,” as packed with photos as it is, is worth a million.

With that in mind, there’s not a lot of narrative inside this book, just a few poems, a small number of very brief interviews, a handful of memories passed down, and some background stories from author Berry and his co-authors. The tales are interesting but scant.

For most readers, though, that lack of narrative isn’t going to matter much. The photographs are the reason why you’d have this book.

Here are pictures of life as it was 50 years or a century ago: group photos, pictures taken of proud moments, worn pews, and happy children. Some of the modern pictures may make you wonder why they’re included, but they set a tone and tell a tale.

This is the kind of book you’ll take off the shelf, and notice something different every time you do. “Affrilachia” doesn’t contain a lot of words, but it’s a good choice when it’s time to branch out in your reading.

“Affrilachia: Testimonies,” by Chris Aluka Berry with Kelly Elaine Navies and Maia A. Surdam

c.2024, University of Kentucky Press, $50.00.

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Black History

Alice Parker: The Innovator Behind the Modern Gas Furnace

Born in Morristown, New Jersey, in 1895, Alice Parker lived during a time when women, especially African American women, faced significant social and systemic barriers. Despite these challenges, her contributions to home heating technology have had a lasting impact.

Published

6 hours ago

December 22, 2024

Oakland Post

In 1919, Alice Parker patented the design for a gas-powered central heating system, a groundbreaking invention. Image courtesy of U.S. Patent Office.

By Tamara Shiloh

Alice Parker was a trailblazing African American inventor whose innovative ideas forever changed how we heat our homes.

Born in Morristown, New Jersey, in 1895, Parker lived during a time when women, especially African American women, faced significant social and systemic barriers. Despite these challenges, her contributions to home heating technology have had a lasting impact.

Parker grew up in New Jersey, where winters could be brutally cold. Although little is documented about her personal life, her education played a crucial role in shaping her inventive spirit. She attended Howard University, a historically Black university in Washington, D.C., where she may have developed her interest in practical solutions to everyday challenges.

Before Parker’s invention, most homes were heated using wood or coal-burning stoves. These methods were labor-intensive, inefficient, and posed fire hazards. Furthermore, they failed to provide even heating throughout a home, leaving many rooms cold while others were uncomfortably warm.

Parker recognized the inefficiency of these heating methods and imagined a solution that would make homes more comfortable and energy-efficient during winter.

In 1919, she patented her design for a gas-powered central heating system, a groundbreaking invention. Her design used natural gas as a fuel source to distribute heat throughout a building, replacing the need for wood or coal. The system allowed for thermostatic control, enabling homeowners to regulate the temperature in their homes efficiently.

What made her invention particularly innovative was its use of ductwork, which channeled warm air to different parts of the house. This concept is a precursor to the modern central heating systems we use today.

While Parker’s design was never fully developed or mass-produced during her lifetime, her idea laid the groundwork for modern central heating systems. Her invention was ahead of its time and highlighted the potential of natural gas as a cleaner, more efficient alternative to traditional heating methods.

Parker’s patent is remarkable not only for its technical innovation but also because it was granted at a time when African Americans and women faced severe limitations in accessing patent protections and recognition for their work. Her success as an inventor during this period is a testament to her ingenuity and determination.

Parker’s legacy lives on in numerous awards and grants – most noticeably in the annual Alice H. Parker Women Leaders in Innovation Award. That distinction is given out by the New Jersey Chamber of Commerce to celebrate outstanding women innovators in Parker’s home state.

The details of Parker’s later years are as sketchy as the ones about her early life. The specific date of her death, along with the cause, are also largely unknown.