Harold Jordan Biographical File

Dr. Harold Jordan was the first Black resident at Vanderbilt University Medical Center and served as Tennessee’s first Black commissioner of mental health. He earned numerous honors for his career in psychiatry, education and public service, including being the namesake of the Harold Jordan Center in Nashville which is a state facility serving people facing criminal charges who have intellectual disabilities.

Jordan was born on May 24, 1937, in Newnan, Georgia where he graduated from high school in 1954. He then attended Morehouse College were graduated with a degree in biology in 1958. Enrolling at Meharry Medical College later that year, he earned his M.D. in 1962.

After completing a one-year internship at Meharry, Jordan decided to pursue a specialty in psychiatry. He applied and received one of three residency positions offered by Vanderbilt University Medical Center 1964. After completing his residency in 1967 he became an attending physician and entered public service shortly thereafter first as Assistant Commissioner for Psychiatric Services, and later as Commissioner of Mental Health and Mental Retardation for the state of Tennessee. In 1979, the state opened the Harold W. Jordan Habilitation Center, making Tennessee one of the first states to operate such a facility.

He returned to Meharry Medical College later in his career and chaired the school’s psychiatry department for 18 years and served for a time as the acting dean of Meharry’s School of Medicine. He was awarded the school's President’s Award and the Humanism in Clinical Medicine Award. Dr. Jordan also maintained a clinical appointment on the faculty of the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine until 2016.

In 2024, he was awarded the Living Legends award from the Thomas J. Blocker Society, an alumni society for Morehouse College.

Jordan and his wife, Geraldine, retired in the early 2010s to Los Angeles, where several of their children had moved. He died there on December 26, 2024. He was 87.