Leon howard sullivan biography of abraham
Leon howard sullivan biography of abraham
Leon Howard Sullivan, Jr. (1922-2001) - Blackpast.
Sullivan, Leon Howard
October 16, 1922
April 24, 2001
Civil rights teacher Leon Sullivan was born in Charleston, West Virginia. As a young man he was encouraged by his grandmother to improve the lives of the disadvantaged; after receiving a B.A.
from West Virginia State College in 1943, he decided he could do this best by entering the ministry. That year he moved to New York and, on a scholarship, enrolled in the Union Theological Seminary, where he came to the attention of Rev.
Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Powell hired Sullivan as an assistant minister at the Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem. Another mentor, A. Philip Randolph, instructed Sullivan in community mobilization tactics. These lessons stood Sullivan in good stead when, after receiving his seminary degree in 1945 and an M.A.
from Columbia University in religious education in 1947, he worked as a community organizer in South Orange, New Jersey.
In 1950 Sullivan was named pastor of the Zion Baptist Church in Philadelph