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Cheat Sheet

The Sullivan Principles

Leon Sullivan created principles for running businesses in a responsible way.  These two codes of conduct were instrumental in bringing an end to apartheid in South Africa.  These principles were:

  • Non-segregation of the races in all eating, comfort, and work facilities.
  • Equal and fair employment practices for all employees.
  • Equal pay for all employees doing equal or comparable work for the same period of time.
  • Initiation of and development of training programs that will prepare, in substantial numbers, blacks and other nonwhites for supervisory, administrative, clerical, and technical jobs.
  • Increasing the number of blacks and other nonwhites in management and supervisory positions.
  • Improving the quality of life for blacks and other nonwhites outside the work environment in such areas as housing, transportation, school, recreation, and health facilities.
  • Working to eliminate laws and customs that impede social, economic, and political justice. (added in 1984)

These principles were updated in 1999 along with UN Secretary General Kofi Annan.  You can read the Global Sullivan Principles here.

Charles Barkley’s Black History Month All Stars

All Star #21: Leon Sullivan

In 2016, Charles Barkley marked Black History Month with a daily spotlight on local African-American heroes. Many of them didn’t make it into the history books or even the newspapers of their time. But their stories are inspiring and worth knowing. Here’s another look.

20

Leon Sullivan

Civil Rights Leader

Leon Sullivan

Civil Rights Leader

(October 16, 1922- April 24, 2001)

Rev. Leon Sullivan—the “lion of Zion”—used his pulpit and his position as longtime pastor of North Philly’s Zion Baptist Church to organize for local African-American causes, particularly in employment.

From 1959 to 1963, he led area black preachers in organizing “selective patronage” boycotts of local companies—Tasty Baking, Sun Oil, Gulf—deemed to discriminate against African Americans in their hiring, urging black consumers with the slogan “Don’t buy where you don’t work.”

The movement opened up several thousand jobs to black workers and drew national attention, including that of Martin Luther King Jr, who adopted Sullivan’s techniques in his Operation Breadbasket.

In 1964, Sullivan opened the first Opportunity Industrial Center, a job-service training program to teach manufacturing skills to black Philadelphians. OIC still operates today, in 22 states and around the globe.

Sullivan led Zion for 40 years, growing it from 600 congregants to 6,000, and turning it into a community hub (the center still bears his name).

Throughout, he also spent time in South Africa helping to fight and dismantle apartheid and creating a set of rules—now dubbed the ‘Sullivan Principles’ —that serve as guidelines for American corporations doing business in South Africa.

He recalled in a 1999 interview a trip to South Africa that ended with him enduring a strip search at the airport.

“A man with the biggest .45 I’d ever seen said, ‘We do to you what we have to,’” Sullivan recalled to the New York Times. “I stood there in my underwear, thinking, ‘I’m the head of the largest black church in Philadelphia and I’m on the board of directors of General Motors. When I get home, I’ll do to you what I have to.’”

EDUCATION:

  • West Virginia State College, B.A. 1943
  • Union Theological Seminary
  • Columbia University, M.A. 1947
  • Virginia Union University, D.D.

 

ACCOMPLISHMENTS:

  • Founded Zion Investments Inc. in 1962
  • Founded OIC in 1964
  • First black Director of General Motors’ board
  • Started first African-African American Summit, 1991
  • Selected as one of 10 outstanding young men in United States by U.S. junior Chamber of Commerce, 1955
  • Named one of 100 Outstanding Young Men of America, Life magazine, 1963
  • Russwurm Award, National Publisher’s Association, 1963
  • Philadelphia Fellowship Commission Award, 1964
  • Philadelphia Book Award, 1966
    Awarded Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1991
  • Franklin D. Roosevelt Four Freedoms Medal in 1987 for his efforts to eradicate apartheid in South Africa

 

Final Word: The preamble of Sullivan Principles reads: “The objectives of the Global Sullivan Principles are to support economic, social and political justice by companies where they do business; to support human rights and to encourage equal opportunity at all levels of employment, including racial and gender diversity on decision making committees and boards; to train and advance disadvantaged workers for technical, supervisory and management opportunities; and to assist with greater tolerance and understanding among peoples; thereby, helping to improve the quality of life for communities, workers and children with dignity and equality. I urge companies large and small in every part of the world to support and follow the Global Sullivan Principles of corporate social responsibility wherever they have operations.”

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