Multimedia arts program for teens seeks to RAISE awareness of Rev. Leon H. Sullivan’s legacy and principles

Young people who enjoy writing poetry, composing music, producing hip-hop beats, or making films or videos, may be eligible to apply for a summer workshop called RAISE, a multimedia program to help them create projects based on the legacy of the late Rev. Leon H. Sullivan.

Sullivan, who was known as “the Lion of Zion,” led Philadelphia’s Zion Baptist Church in North Philadelphia for 38 years from 1950 to 1988. He created the Sullivan Principles that guided companies worldwide doing business in apartheid-era South Africa.

Stephanie Renée, founder of Soul Sanctuary, will lead RAISE, a project for teens and tweens between the ages of 12 and 18. RAISE stands for Resurrect, Amplify, Inspire, Share, Elevate. The program is expected to start in June at the Leon H. Sullivan Building at 1415 N. Broad St. Soul Sanctuary is a nonprofit arts education foundation dedicated to the preservation and proliferation of positive soulful expression.

“The goal is to refresh the legacy of Rev. Sullivan for a new generation.”

She will help young people “to develop creative content using Sullivan’s sermons and business philosophies as their foundation. “ The Leon H. Sullivan Charitable Trust is working with Renée on the project.

» READ MORE: A city and church are celebrating the late Rev. Leon H. Sullivan, the ‘Lion of Zion,’ for his 100th birthday

During the first half of each session, students will learn about Sullivan, whose church at Broad and Venango streets once had the largest Black congregation in Philadelphia.

“For the second half of the day, we will work on creative skills, with some music theory, and an introduction to audio production,” Renée said. “We expect the poets to write and the MCs to collaborate with the writers and to turn it into hip-hop expressions. The musicians and producers will make the beats.

“The goal is to refresh the legacy of Rev. Sullivan for a new generation, and we’re doing that through their natural creativity,” Renée said.

The deadline to apply for the program is May 15. There is a capacity for about 16 teens, who will receive a small stipend. The four-session schedule will be flexible so that teens who have summer jobs can participate also. She said anyone who knows of an interested teen should direct them to the application here .

“We’re looking for young people who are already expressing creativity in one way or another, and we want them to submit their poetry, or MP3s or videos.”

Added Mable Welborn, the chair of the Sullivan Charitable Trust Board: “We are not revering Dr. Sullivan so much as a person, it is his work, and his organizing spirit that cannot be forgotten because it has some relevance today.”

Sullivan made front-page news in the New York Times when he was the first Black person in the United States to be appointed to the board of an international corporation, General Motors Corp., in 1971.

In 1958, Sullivan became know for starting a civil rights movement in the North by launching a “selective patronage” campaign, which had a motto: “Don’t shop where you can’t work.”

In 1964, he founded the Opportunities Industrialization Center (OIC) , followed by opening of the Sullivan Progress Plaza, the first Black-owned shopping center in the United States, in 1968.

In addition to his work for civil rights in the United States, Sullivan played an important role in the fight against apartheid in South Africa when, in 1977, he created the Sullivan Principles as a way for companies doing business in South Africa to operate without segregating their work forces.

This was a time when young people on colleges campuses were demonstrating and demanding that universities and corporations divest from doing business in South Africa.

Sullivan, who died in 2001 at age 78, was known for championing self-empowerment. As opposed to some of the radicals in the 1960s whose mantra was “burn, baby, burn,” he told African Americans to “build, brother, build.”

» READ MORE: City unveils Rev. Dr. Leon H. Sullivan International Arrivals Hall at Philadelphia Airport

But many of this generation of students in Philadelphia likely have no idea of the role that Sullivan had in ending apartheid, Renée said.

North Broad Street between Oxford Street and Girard Avenue is now known as Rev. Dr. Leon H. Sullivan Way, she said.“ But I can guarantee you that 99 percent of the people passing by those three blocks, don’t understand the connection between the three entities, where there is Progress Plaza, the OIC building and the Leon H. Sullivan Center. “

“It’s not just about the man, but it’s about the organizing and the self reliance he helped to promote that that led to these three entities that are all separately operated,” she said.