[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 64 (Thursday, May 10, 2001)]
[Senate]
[Page S4819]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                TRIBUTE TO THE REVEREND LEON H. SULLIVAN

 Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, I rise today to remember the The 
Reverend Leon Sullivan, a civil rights leader who spent his life 
breaking down the barriers of racial prejudice, and building in their 
place a more just world for all of us. Among his many accomplishments, 
Reverend Sullivan crafted the famous Sullivan Principles, which helped 
to topple Apartheid in South Africa, and he founded Opportunities 
Investment Centers, OICs, which have brought new hope and new job 
skills to the lives of people in my state of Wisconsin, and around the 
world.
  With everything he did, Reverend Sullivan was both an idealist and a 
pragmatist. He righted the wrong of prejudice not just by calling for 
change, but by charting the course by which that change could occur. 
Leon Sullivan was born in West Virginia in 1922, where his quest for 
racial justice began in early childhood. He desegregated a restaurant 
in his hometown at the age of ten, and worked his way through graduate 
school as the first African-American coin-box collector for the Bell 
Telephone Company. Later, as pastor of the Zion Baptist Church in 
Philadelphia, he and other African-American pastors started the highly 
successful Selective Patronage Program, which boycotted businesses that 
refused to hire minorities.
  Then, in 1964, Reverend Sullivan, as always, saw hope and possibility 
in an unlikely place: an old jailhouse in Philadelphia. In his eyes, 
the structure could be remade into a center for helping the unemployed 
reach their full potential. And so it was, through his characteristic 
hard work and determination. By 1969 about 20,000 minority workers were 
enrolled in OICs around the country. The OIC in Milwaukee, where I 
first had the honor of meeting Reverend Sullivan, is the world's 
largest OIC affiliate, and has helped thousands of people in that 
community achieve economic independence. The Opportunities Investment 
Center of Greater Milwaukee is a leader, not only in Milwaukee, but 
also nationally, in the provision of local employment, training and 
community development services. The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee 
established the Sullivan Professorship in 1979 to strengthen the ties 
between the university and the inner city.
  OICs are now located in South America, England, Poland and throughout 
Africa. In the creation of the OIC, and in his myriad other endeavors, 
Leon Sullivan was often in the forefront of social change. His name is 
also well known for the creation, in 1976, of the ``Sullivan 
Principles,'' which outlined a code of conduct by which U.S. 
corporations operating in apartheid-era South Africa could voluntarily 
choose to abide.
  As disinvestment pressures on U.S. companies increased, the Sullivan 
Principles helped push companies to support education and community 
development projects outside the workplace that could help improve the 
quality of life for black South Africans.
  Reverend Sullivan's legacy lives on in so many ways. In South Africa, 
thanks to the Sullivan Principles, U.S. companies operating in South 
Africa still make it a priority to devote significant resources to 
philanthropic programs, including job training and efforts to create 
partnerships with black-owned businesses. In Milwaukee, the OIC has 
succeeded because Reverend Sullivan believed that by empowering people 
with new skills, he could change lives, and change the world.
  And he did change the world, from an old jailhouse in Philadelphia, 
to a Saturday school in Johannesburg, to the Opportunities Investment 
Center in Milwaukee. Leon Sullivan made enormous contributions--to 
local communities throughout the United States, and to our global 
community as well. We remember him today as a great leader who believed 
in a more just world, and set out to build it. We are grateful that he 
did.

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