Sullivan, Leon Howard (1922-2001), was a Baptist minister and civil rights leader who organized economic self-help programs for African Americans. In 1971, Sullivan became the first black member of the board of directors of General Motors Corporation. He worked to hire and train black men and women for jobs at all levels throughout the company and to improve its economic ties to blacks and black-owned businesses. Sullivan was awarded the Spingarn Medal in 1971 for his achievements in promoting equal opportunities for blacks.
Sullivan was born in Charleston, West Virginia, on Oct. 16, 1922. He began his self-help projects in the 1950’s. Sullivan regarded unemployment as the basic cause of black juvenile delinquency. In 1959, he led 400 black ministers and their congregations in starting what turned out to be a three-year boycott of about 30 Philadelphia companies. These firms had refused to hire blacks but opened many jobs to them as a result of the boycott.
In 1964, Sullivan founded the Opportunities Industrialization Center in Philadelphia to provide training and job placement for minority groups. It became Opportunities Industrialization Centers of America, one of the largest job-training organizations in the world. In 1965, Sullivan founded Zion Investment Associates. He persuaded members of his Zion Baptist Church—and later other blacks—to give this corporation $10 a month for three years to establish black businesses. The corporation built and managed an apartment complex, a shopping center, a garment manufacturing company, and other businesses—all in Philadelphia. In 1981, Sullivan helped establish the International Foundation for Education and Self-Help. This organization works to reduce hunger and illiteracy, and to promote health care and economic development, in developing nations.
In 1977, Sullivan began a campaign to help end apartheid, the South African government’s policy of rigid racial segregation. He asked United States companies operating in South Africa to follow a code that became known as the Sullivan Principles. This code, in part, required employers to ban segregation in workplaces, provide equal pay for equal work, and use more nonwhite managers. About 130 U.S. firms agreed to follow the principles. But the code did little to end apartheid. As a result, in 1987, Sullivan urged U.S. firms to leave South Africa. The firms that had followed the principles then left the country. In 1991, the South African government repealed the last of the laws that had formed the legal basis of apartheid. In 1993, it set a date for South Africa’s first national elections in which blacks could vote. Sullivan then began to urge U.S. companies to invest in South Africa. The elections took place in 1994, and the African National Congress, a party whose membership consisted mostly of blacks, won control of the government. Sullivan died on April 25, 2001.
