Reverend Leon Sullivan
| Leon Howard Sullivan | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born |
October 16, 1922 Charleston, West Virginia, United States |
| Died | April 24, 2001 (aged 78) Scottsdale, Arizona, USA |
| Movement |
Civil Rights Movement Anti-Apartheid Movement |
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 on April 24, 2001, of leukemia at a Scottsdale, Arizona, hospital. He was 78.
Born to Charles and Helen Sullivan in Charleston, West Virginia. He was raised in a small house in a dirt alley called Washington Court in one of Charleston's poorest sections. His parents divorced when he was three years old and he grew up an only child. Sullivan has often re-told the event which set a course for the remainder of his life. 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.
Sullivan also attributed much of his early influence to his grandmother:
As a teen-ager, Sullivan—who as an adult stood 6 ft 5 in tall—attended Charleston's Garnet High School for blacks and received a basketball and football scholarship to West Virginia State College in 1939 where he was a member of Tau Chapter of Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity. A foot injury ended his athletic career and forced Sullivan to pay for college by working in a steel mill.
Sullivan became a Baptist minister in West Virginia at the age of 18. In 1943, during a visit to West Virginia, noted black minister Adam Clayton Powell convinced Sullivan to move to New York City where he attended the Union Theological Seminary (1943–45) and later Columbia University (Master's in Religion 1947). He also served as Powell's assistant minister at the Abyssinian Baptist Church. During this period, Sullivan met his wife Grace, a woman whom he referred to as "Amazing Grace." The couple would eventually have three children, Hope, Julie and Howard. One of Sullivan’s greater achievements during his time in New York was the recruitment of "a hundred colored men for the police force" in Harlem with Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia’s support and encouragement.
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