I had been privileged to hear the striking Ambassadress speak movingly earlier in the day, and was anxious to meet her. This graceful, dignfied, elegant woman had, after all, served as Nelson Mandela's Chief of Staff during the critical period in this great country's transformation. I was not disappointed.
Off the second floor, in a lush back yard, we sipped South African wine, nibbled on hors d'oeuvres, and enjoyed interesting conversation. The fact that I had worked for some time w/Leon Sullivan brought me instant acceptance. His brilliant "Sullivan Principles", still utilized, were an intellectually muscular way to bring about real change from within.
But, as I moved from person to person, enjoying in equal parts the ambiance, conversation, and wine, one artist and one song resonated in my head: Gil Scott-Heron's "Johannesburg". Yes, Virginia, change can happen!!!
So just who was this "Doc", why is it that this American figure is almost universally known and revered on the Continent of Africa and so lightly-regarded here at home? Well, much of that was by design. You see, "Doc" only sought the spotlight when it was useful. Away from that glare, however, he constructed an infrastructure and legacy for Black America and for America at Large that yet remain.
So many things about "Doc" were improbable. He came, after all, from Charleston, West Virginia--yeah, I know. As an adult, he migrated to Philadelphia and became pastor of Zion Baptist Church. Frustration welled up in his community in 1963 and 1964 as the Sunshine Biscuit Co. refused to hire Black workers of any kind. He organized a boycott of their products, and finally got their attention. A problem surfaced, however: the company finally agreed to hire QUALIFIED workers.
Rev. Sullivan recognized that a mechanism would have to be created to recruit, identify, and prepare Black folks if they were to progress on the job front. He engaged a great friend, Rev. Thomas Ritter, and they ultimately devised a revolutionary formula of instruction and training that would transform not only Black America, but the approach to training worldwide.
Possessing only meager resources, they began in an abandoned jailhouse. Striking out in a radical departure from the top-down, Socratic method of instruction, they came up with a client-centered approach that was far more nimble and capable of addressing specific barriers and learning needs for each person. The process began with an assessment of each person, their strengths and needs. They came up with the term "Jobology" to describe the practical skills--application completion, interview techniques, attitudes and habits needed to keep a job--that were needed.
They progressed from there to devise training programs for each successive job area for which they opened doors--bank tellers, secretaries, etc.--each incorporating skills identified by personnel directors in that field. And the instruction was, for the time, revolutionary--open-entry, open-exit--built in modules so that trainees--pressed for time--could learn that which they needed. If you look closely at the way instruction takes place in America today, you will see these and other principles now form the basis for much of the training and education that exists, in colleges, private businesses, and elsewhere.
So why have you not heard of this? Simple--"Doc" didn't need the credit--he had too much to do and too little time to do it. So the "Lion of Zion" set out to replicate the success he had experienced in Philly through an organization called OIC--Opportunities Industrialization Centers of America. At its peak, when I was involved, there were more than 140 OIC's throughout the country, each a grass roots community-based organization offering help, training, and assistance to those in greatest need.
Doc marshalled support from the Churches, from Government, and through a close partnership with private business, who needed him to fulfill the promises they made. OIC graduates became police officers, firefighters, and captains of industry. Anytime someone said that they would hire Black folks (or Brown folks, or Red folks), but needed qualified applicants, OIC met that objection.
Some compared Doc to Booker T. Washington, but he was more than that. He was a moderate and a radical at the same time. Even as he operated a 'conservative' training mechanism, he made common cause w/such as Clyde and Vernon Bellecourt of AIM and the Rebel Governor of Chiapas.
I'll never forget an episode when he was visiting here in Phoenix in 1977: We were w/Doc in a crowded room w/a low ceiling, and he was giving a presser. A pretty dumb tv reporter asked Doc if he believed in Black Power. Not missing a beat, he queried back, "Believe in Black Power?", then thundered, overpowering the room and, I believe, causing tremors, "I AM Black Power--6 foot 4 inches of it!!!!!" Needless to say, the mousy reporter had no further questions.....
With all of this, however, perhaps his most enduring impact was left on the Continent of Africa. As was so common w/Doc, while others paid lipservice to Mother Africa, Doc DID something about it. He believed that his community-based, client-centered approach could help transform people and communities in Africa, and set about it, creating OIC/International. In Ghana, Sierra Leone, Lesotho, and many other fledgling African countries, OIC meant "hope" (perhaps not coincidentally, the name of his eldest daughter). It was in South Africa, though, that Doc really made--and spread--his name.
South Africa, at the time, was under the dark spell of apartheid, and it was more than difficult to see how that terrible and demeaning spell would ever be broken. Well, Doc--at that time a major member of the Board of General Motors, which had considerable interests and facilities in South Africa--had an idea, known to this day as the "Sullivan Principles": GM would not pull out of the country, would continue doing business there, but with a difference--within its operations, it would move toward the equality the evil government denied. He moved to train GM's Black employees to accept positions at all levels. Opportunities opened up, and, within GM, they were treated--and promoted--with dignity and respect. Doc thus created a parallel universe within South Africa, first w/GM, then w/virtually all American and European countries that did business within South Africa.
These new "facts on the ground" flew in the face of all of the sick excuses the hatemongers threw up. Through these facts, he began to create a new social and political, as well as economic, reality, within South Africa. The defining political moment came when Doc invited the very-hesitant Henry Kissinger to speak at the august OIC Convocation in Doc's own Philadelphia: Security of all types choked downtown Philly. In introducing K, "Doc" used 'his' microphone and about 5-10 minutes to tell Kissinger exactly what he SHOULD be doing, in powerful fashion and to thundering applause. "Doc" was about 6'4", and dominated the room wherever he was, but in particular w/several thousand of his folks.
All Henry could do was waddle his 5'9'' or so to the mike and intone apologetically, "You know, while I have met w/Dr. Sullivan in Washington, I had never before seen him speak before a crowd. If I had, I'm not sure I would have had the courage to follow him to the podium!"
Game, Set, Match--any thought K had of advocating a policy other than that which Doc had prescribed was instantly wiped away. The rest, as they say, is history...Black history, to be sure, but history that has enured to the credit and benefit of all humankind...
At that reception at the South African Embassy this summer, when I spoke w/an Embassy official and shared w/them that I had worked w/Dr. Sullivan, their eyes grew large and they confided, "You know, we still use the Sullivan Principles today."
So Doc's legacy lives on today throughout Africa, as it does in America, and we are all better off. While this has gone on, I cannot recall Dr. Sullivan without acknowledging his family. If Doc was a Towering Inferno, his wife, Grace, is a placid pond. I first met this wonderful woman when they were visiting here and she came down w/an excruciating toothache. I was enlisted to transport her to a dentist, and, even in such compromised circumstances, she was the embodiment of peace, kindness, and graciousness--the perfect balance to her sometimes volcanic husband.
One more story...once at a Convocation, a relatively quiet preacher was walking the crowd through some requisite housekeeping when Doc suddenly leapt to his feet, grabbed the microphone, and, obviously moved by an idea, told the audience what he wanted to do, barked instructions to 'his' preachers, directors, and others, then calmly sat down. The young man returned to the podium, and, as the waves of Doc's energetic outburst still roiled in the room and the audience laughed nervously, intoned knowingly, "Those of us who have worked with Doctor Sullivan for some time understand that you can't always program Inspiration!"
Doc's legacy lives on, in Grace, in his three children, Hope, Julie, and Howard, and in the Scottsdale-based International Foundation for Education and Self-Help (IFESH)that continues his work throughout Africa and beyond. It lives on, as well, in the hearts, minds, and recollections of those, like me, who were privileged to know and work with this Giant of a Man.
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