Congressional Medal of Freedom
Awarded by President George Bush
November 18, 1991
The Reverend Leon Sullivan, a civil rights leader and pastor emeritus of the Zion Baptist Church in Philadelphia, has devoted his life to the causes of liberty and justice. Reverend Sullivan founded the Opportunities Industrialization Centers of America, one of the largest and most prestigious job training organizations in the world. He later founded the International Foundation for Education and Self-Help. In 1971, Leon Sullivan was elected to the Board of Directors of General Motors, becoming the first black American to participate in the direction of a U.S. auto company. America honors this man of principle, who in word and example has shown so many people the way to freedom.
Most of us know the Rev. Sullivan as the author of the Sullivan Principles with regard to dealing with South Africa. I seem to recall that by doing so he got into a world of trouble here at home. Essentially, the Sullivan Principles were aligned with, and in fact were the cornerstones of Constructive Engagement.
When he died in 2001 Andrew Makyuth noted:
His Sullivan Principles, an ethical code of conduct for companies doing business in South Africa, gave legitimacy to the desegregation of work facilities and equal opportunities for black people at a time when the South African government balked at recognizing African trade unions.
As the antiapartheid movement accelerated and became more radical in the 1980s, the Sullivan Principles were derided as too tame, too gradual. But they set the stage for corporate divestiture from South Africa, contributing to pressure for the government's eventual capitulation, leading to the peaceful elections in 1994.
"The Sullivan Principles were the right thing at the right time," said Tom Manthata, a former antiapartheid campaigner who worked with Archbishop Desmond Tutu at the South African Council of Churches. He is now a member of South Africa's Human Rights Commission.
But if you listen to folks like 'The Flaming Grasshopper' you might hear rhetoric that goes a little something like this:
Remember apartheid South Africa? Remember the voluntary corporate code of conduct called the Sullivan Principles? Remember Reagan’s “constructive engagement?” The Sullivan Principles and constructive engagement were a cover for “business as usual” in an effort to dispel criticism of the brutal suppression of the majority of the South African population, financially underpinned by U.S. corporate investments, bank loans, and trade.
...In the early 1970s, global corporations, including about 350 U.S.-based transnational companies, were pouring millions of dollars into racist, white-minority-ruled South Africa, to earn lots of money. Why not? There was cheap, controlled, and abundant black African labor, cheap natural resources, a western banking system, an industrial economy exporting products to Europe and the West, and a police and military state elected in a whites only “democracy” to keep the trains running on time.
There's lots more where that came from. Here's a bit more nuanced approach which appeared at MIT's Sloan School of Business. In the end, however, it argues for abandonment of Constructive Engagement.
For years, organizations and people across the world have been calling for the United States and the other major foreign investors in South Africa to disinvest from that country, to withdraw the economic support which they are giving to the minority government and its apartheid system. The primary response which US corporations have made against these calls has been that serve as a positive influence on the treatment of blacks within South Africa. Morgan Guaranty Trust Corporation has written that "the continued presence in South Africa of US companies constitutes a source of economic well-being for black South Africans, and can be a spearhead for improvement in employment practices, as shown by the [Sullivan Principles]."
Many persons are reluctant to support US corporate disinvestment from South Africa, because they wonder if this claim isn't correct. Do US corporations serve as a positive influence on the employment practices of businesses in South Africa? Do US companies benefit the black population, offering training programs and better employment opportunities than do South African companies? Defenders of continued US corporate involvement in South Africa have seldom been forced to demonstrate the reality of these claims.
...
US corporate claims to acting as a positive influence in South Africa rest primarily upon their implementation of the Sullivan Principles. These principles include a call for non-segregation in work facilities, equal employment practices, equal pay for equal work, training programs for black workers, increasing the number of black management personnel, and improving the quality of life for workers outside the workplace. Companies operating in South Africa have been encouraged to sign these six principles and submit themselves to a review of their performance. Recently added has been a principle of active advocacy for political changes away from apartheid.
Of the 284 US companies operating in South Africa, only 128 have even signed the Principles. In 1984 over one-half of the signatories either never reported or received a failing grade.
Ford Motor Co. has proudly spoken of itself as a leading supporter of the Sullivan Principles. It touts management training centers and desegregated cafeterias and other evidence of its progressive influence. Yet, the black auto workers at Ford South Africa have been forced to strike in 1979 and 1982, and the union has long accused Ford of refusing to negotiate in good faith. In the 1982 strike, Ford closed its plants when the union demanded a $2.16 per hour minimum wage against Ford's $1.90 per hour offer. Last year, 1500 Ford workers went on strike to protest the layoff of 490 workers. An additional 800 workers were put on layoff later that year.
US corporations continue to operate in South Africa because it is profitable. Apartheid makes it very profitable. These corporations pay millions of dollars in taxes which pay for the police, prisons, weapons, and armaments that maintain the apartheid system. They sell the government its armored personnel carriers, its computers and communications technologies. Westinghouse has sold South Africa several licenses for the manufacture of nuclear power facilities.
I would offer, with my limited review of history, that such arguments were quite compelling to me at the time. Looking for clarity, I flipflopped, and since I was at a rather incompetent corporation at the time, I gave the total divestment crowd the benefit of the doubt. But it was not so much due to the
What I didn't realize was that Sullivan himself was involved with the establishment of OIC. Once again I needed to be the first one to notice that Rev. Sullivan had no entry at Wikipedia. Calling all Cobblers. The Reverend has mostly been forgotten, or at least not given much review here in cyberspace. I personally did not know that he was a bigshot at GM, and I've probably been guilty of confusing him with Randall Robinson at least once. I'll never do that again. So here's where it gets interesting.
Sullivan also founded the Progress Investment Associates (PIA), as well as the Zion Nonprofit Charitable Trust (ZNCT), to fund housing, shopping, human services, educational and other nonprofit ventures for inner-city dwellers. He also established inner-city retirement and assisted-living complexes in Philadelphia and other cities throughout the country, dubbed Opportunities Towers.
PIA built shopping centers. It's basically a real-estate operation that joined the Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce in 1989. Zion looks like it was established for poor folks. Nice work. The OIC looks to have been a very large and successful enterprise. I had never heard of it but it seems to have accomplished a great deal of what folks call for today vis a vis the creation of employment opportunity through training.
As I was reading the Left angle on Sullivan, they made it appear that he had been successful in working much of the OIC magic in Africa itself and it was in protecting that interest that he came to represent many black workers through GM. So the initial thrust of this post was to contrast the level of assistance he was giving to Africans there vs here. But his story is a lot more complex, all the more reason to wonder why he hasn't been at Wikipedia.
With headquarters in Philadelphia, PA, USA, OIC International (OICI) is a PVO devoted to improving the lives of the disadvantaged worldwide. In over 35 years of service, OICI has built one of the largest community-based job skills training networks in the world, establishing 40 training programs in 18 countries. Local OICI affiliates in Africa, Poland and the Philippines have trained thousands to become productive farmers, skilled workers and prominent members of their communities.
Sullivan ran afoul of the Heritage Foundation as he started pushing for mandatory compliance:
While the substance of the Principles is not the problem, the compliance system and machinery are. The Principles' author, Leon Sullivan, a black Baptist minister from Philadelphia, has abandoned the voluntary nature of the procedure by publicly endorsing and testifying on behalf of the Solarz-Gray amendments to Title III of the Export Administration Act. Solarz-Gray would
From an interview, July 25, 1984.
transform into binding law major elements of the Sullivan Princi- ples and would ban further investments by U.S. companies in South Africa. Violaters would face fines up to $1 million and stiff jail terms.
But eventually his principles became a model for international corporate repsonsibility.
Quite a man.
Recent Comments