Where are the new age Dr. Leon Sullivan’s?
My Day
By Dr. J. Ester Davis
Did the Chip Act pass? What is in it? How many chips are in your phone? How many technology hubs will be created? What else is there to compliment this forward thinking act to boost our economy? How many jobs are projected? Will your car run without chips? Where are the school districts on this issue? What job training and education is planned for African Americans?
For some strange odd reason this $280 Billion Bill to boost microchip production in America made me think about Rev. Leon Sullivan and his self-help movement. We do not hear much about Dr. Sullivan today, and that is tragic, but his job training opportunities for African Americans was undoubtedly one of the first action role civil rights moves in these United States. Dr. Sullivan organized a march on Washington, D. C., in the early 1940’s. He believed that job training was the key to improving African American lives. So, in 1958, he asked Philadelphia’s largest companies to interview young blacks. Two companies responded positively. Working with other ministers, Dr. Sullivan organized a boycott of “various businesses”. Dr. Sullivan estimated that the boycott produced thousands of jobs for African Americans in about four years. But he soon realized that training needed to be a serious partner. Somewhere around 1962, with national attention Dr. Sullivan tagged from Fortune Magazine and The New York Times, Dr. King and the SCLC asked Dr. Sullivan to share information with them on his success.
Dr. Sullivan’s work was based on the principle of ‘self-help’ which provided people of color with the tools to overcome barriers of poverty, oppression and ignorance. The absolute key was that African Americans had been excluded from training for better paying jobs. Making jobs available was not enough. “Integration without preparation is frustration”, he preached. In 1964 Dr. Sullivan, a Baptist minister, founded Opportunities Industrialization Centers (OIC) of America in an abandoned jail house in North Philadelphia. The program offered job training, etiquette, instruction in life skills and then placement on jobs. The movement quickly moved around the nation. The movement served millions of under-skilled people from more than thirty(30)states. Today the Zion Investment Association (ZIA) is alive, well and in living color now headed by his daughter, Dr. Julie Helen Sullivan. ZIA an investment company Dr. Sullivan started for new businesses. Dr. Sullivan’s theory about the “power of money” to deal with persistent racial inequalities was proving to be correct.
As Americans, we have to be the largest user of chips. They exist in all our ‘have-to-have products”. The “Chip Act” was necessary and President Biden responded accordingly to the demand to build them in America. After all, we started the ‘chip’ right here at Texas Instruments in Dallas. But due to outsourcing and proposed cheap labor, East Asia now produces roughly 75% of the world’s chips. America imports high tech chips from Taiwan and China, but the pandemic taught us a very valuable lesson …loudly demanding it is time to return to ‘made in America’.
Pastor Dr. Leon Sullivan (1922 – 2001) was a longtime General Motors Board Member focusing on the creation of job training for African Americans, a model of self-help and empowerment to the people of Africa and a master principled legacy maker. He retired from Zion Baptist Church in 1988.
The Chip Act is one powerful answer to “new age skilled jobs” for African Americans. The Chip Act has some other fascinating points in it. PLEASE read it. You can read all about it on your cell phone.
