The late Rev. Leon H. Sullivan led Zion Baptist Church for 38 years. This Sunday, the city will come together to celebrate what would have been his 100th birthday.
Zion Baptist Church, the city of Philadelphia, and its Office of the Creative Economy are celebrating Rev. Leon H. Sullivan, whose 100th birthday would have been Sunday, Oct. 16.
The City of Philadelphia and the Office of Arts, Culture and the Creative Economy have also been working with the Leon H. Sullivan Charitable Trust toOften referred to as the “Lion of Zion,” the Rev. Sullivan led Zion Baptist at Broad and Venango Streets for 38 years from 1950 to 1988. A few years later, in 1964, he opened the first Opportunities Industrialization Center , a job-training center at an abandoned jail at 19th and Oxford Streets. Today, there are centers throughout the U.S. and Africa.The Rev. Sullivan made national news in 1971 when he was the first Black person named to the board of directors of a multinational corporation in America, General Motors.
That controversy and criticism “broke his heart,” said Julie Sullivan-Detheridge, one of the Rev. Sullivan’s three children. “Desmond Tutu said, ‘Leon’s work was just polishing our chains.’ He hated that.” Zion’s current pastor, the Rev. Chauncey P. Harrison, 32, who has a Yale University seminary degree and a doctorate in ministry from Duke, said he knew it would be a challenge to inherit a historic church, and he said it can be a bit overwhelming at times.But he said he has confidence that he can help the church build upon Rev. Sullivan’s legacy.One of the most visible signs in Philadelphia of Rev.
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