Leon Howard Sullivan was a Baptist minister, a civil rights leader and social activist focusing on the creation of job training opportunities for African Americans, a longtime General Motors Board Member, and an anti-Apartheid activist.
27 Facts About Leon Sullivan
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Leon Sullivan's parents divorced when he was three years old and he grew up an only child.
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Leon Sullivan attributed much of his early influence to his grandmother:.
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Leon Sullivan received both a basketball and a football scholarship to West Virginia State College where, in 1940, he was initiated into the Tau chapter of Kappa Alpha Psi fraternity.
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Leon Sullivan became a Baptist minister in West Virginia at the age of 18.
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In 1943, Adam Clayton Powell, a noted black minister, visited West Virginia and convinced Leon Sullivan to move to New York City where the latter attended the Union Theological Seminary and later Columbia University.
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Leon Sullivan served as Powell's assistant minister at the Abyssinian Baptist Church.
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Five years later, the two moved to Philadelphia and Leon Sullivan took on the role of pastor at the Zion Baptist Church.
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Leon Sullivan took his first active role in the civil rights movement by helping to organize a march on Washington, DC, in the early 1940s.
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Leon Sullivan believed that jobs were the key to improving African American lives.
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Leon Sullivan estimated the boycott produced thousands of jobs for African Americans in a period of four years.
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Leon Sullivan's work was built on the principle of "self-help," which provided people with the tools to overcome barriers of poverty and oppression on their own.
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Leon Sullivan realized that simply making jobs available was not enough and said,.
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In 1964, Leon Sullivan founded Opportunities Industrialization Centers of America in an abandoned jail house in North Philadelphia.
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Around the same time, Leon Sullivan established the Zion Investment Association, a company which invested in and started new businesses.
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Leon Sullivan helped to establish more than 20 programs under the International Foundation for Education and Self-Help, including the Global Leon Sullivan Principles initiative.
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Leon Sullivan used the church to organize the black community, and to create a local economic base that would self-perpetuate.
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Rev Leon Sullivan's vision was to use the tools of the free enterprise system to foster something that is vital to community progress - a sense of ownership and a stake in the common good.
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Leon Sullivan came around the table and took my hand and said, Reverend, we can work together.
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In 1971, Leon Sullivan joined the General Motors Board of Directors and became the first African-American on the board of a major corporation.
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Leon Sullivan went on to serve on General Motors' board for over 20 years.
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In 1977, Leon Sullivan developed a code of conduct for companies operating in South Africa called the Leon Sullivan Principles, as an alternative to complete disinvestment.
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Leon Sullivan was determined to provide a model of self-help and empowerment to the people of Africa.
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Leon Sullivan began using his talent for bringing world leaders together to find solutions to international issues through the establishment of the International Foundation for Education and Self-Help in order to establish and maintain programs and activities in the areas of agriculture, business and economic development, democracy and governance, education and health.
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In 1999, the Global Leon Sullivan Principles were issued at the United Nations.
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Leon Sullivan was known and respected throughout the world for the bold and innovative role he played in the global campaign to dismantle the system of apartheid in South Africa.
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Leon Sullivan organized the first Summit in Abidjan, Cote d'Ivoire in 1991 as a result of a number of requests and conversations he had with African leaders seeking an honest dialog among and between leaders of African countries and government officials and leaders from developed countries.