Leon howard sullivan biography of donald
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When the Rev. Leon Howard Sullivan was born in 1922 in Charleston, W.Va., the city was not prepared for the impact he would make not only on the state but the world when it came to corporate equality.
According to State’s website, Sullivan’s heart for equality started when he was a child. He was denied the right to have a soda and sit at the counter of a drugstore on Charleston’s Capitol Street.
Sullivan attended State on a basketball scholarship, but his career was cut short because of an injury. He went on to work at a steel mill to pay for his schooling.
After State, he received theological training at Union Theological Seminary and Columbia University. He went on in 1950 to begin a 38-year ministry at Zion Baptist Church in Philadelphia. Increasing the congregation from 600 to 6,000, Sullivan became known as the “Lion of Zion,” according to State’s website.
In 1958, Sullivan started what would lead to his effort in promoting global corporate equality. He came
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Leon Sullivan, an African-American Baptist minister, author and civil rights leader, was born in Charleston, West Virginia, in 1922. The seeds of Sullivan’s activism were planted as a child when he was denied the right to have a soda and sit at a counter in a drug store on Charleston’s Capitol Street. It was then that he decided he would stand up for what he believed in and the people he believed in.
He graduated from the former Garnet High School and went on to attend West Virginia State University on a basketball scholarship, although his playing career was cut short due to an injury. He was able to finish his education by working at a steel mill to pay for it.
In 1943 Sullivan moved to New York and attended Union Theological Seminar from 1943-1945 and Columbia University where he received his master’s in Religion in 1947. While in New York he met his wife, Grace, and they later had three children Julie, Hope and Howard.
While in New York with the support of then Mayor F
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Leon Sullivan
Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient (1922–2001)
Leon Howard Sullivan (October 16, 1922 – April 24, 2001) 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. Sullivan died of leukemia in a Scottsdale, Arizona hospital at the age of 78.[1]
Early life
[edit]Born to Charles and Helen Sullivan in Charleston, West Virginia, he was raised in a small house on a dirt alley called Washington Court--one of Charleston's poorest communities. His parents divorced when he was three years old and he grew up an only child. At the age of twelve, he tried to purchase a Coca-Cola in a drugstore on Capitol Street. The proprietor refused to sell him the drink saying: "Stand on your feet, boy. You can't sit here." This incident inspired Sullivan's lifetime pursuit of fighting racial prejudice.
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