Solving the Q.N. Problem

As barriers against the hiring of Negroes begin to fall, a new problem is becoming ever more visible: too few of them have the skills to compete effectively in a technological society. Traditional training methods have had only limited success in preparing Negroes for the job market. Consequently, anti-poverty warriors have been deeply impressed by the methods and results of Philadelphia's Rev. Leon Sullivan, a self-taught prophet of self-propulsion.

Sullivan, 44, a strapping (6 ft. 5 in.) West Virginia-born Baptist minister, discovered the complexity of what he calls the '?Q.N." (for Qualified Negro) problem in the early '60s. After opening hundreds of jobs through a quiet, three-year consumers' boycott (in Sullivan's euphemism, a "selective-buying campaign") that never used a picket or a marcher, he discovered to his chagrin that he could not find enough skilled Negroes to fill the jobs. Realizing that "integration without preparation is frustration"--now one of his favorite slogans--he decided to set up his own training program, and with other Negro ministers, established the Opportunities Industrialization Center (O.I.C.) in an abandoned North Philadelphia police station.

Measure of Self-Respect. The decisive element, which has eluded most conventional job programs, was the inculcation of personal pride that Negroes so often lacked. "You can't train someone by just putting him behind a machine," Sullivan maintains. "You've got to see that he's properly motivated and has a measure of self-respect." The students, many of them migrants from the rural South, were taught the achievements of their own race and of other minorities. Not only were they told how to conduct themselves in a job interview, a basic lesson other such courses sometimes overlooked; they were also instructed in the basic urban skills--shopping wisely, handling money, attending to personal hygiene and grooming.

Philadelphia industries responded more than enthusiastically to Sullivan's program, providing both money and machinery for instruction. Sperry Rand contributed a $350,000 Univac computer. Smith Kline & French outfitted a laboratory for the instruction of chemical-lab technicians. The Budd Co., one of the nation's biggest makers of subway cars, gave equipment for training sheet-metal workers, then hired 200 of the graduates.

Protest & Progress. "We are not interested in giving people diplomas," says Sullivan. "We are interested in getting them jobs." That aim has been realized: in three years, O.I.C. has found work for 3,000 people, 90% of its graduates. Sullivan points out that since 97% of his students are classified as poor, O.I.C. has added $9,000,000 to Philadelphia's consumer purchasing, saved the state $2,000,000 in welfare costs. With six centers around the city,

O.I.C. is now preparing 4,000 people a year for new jobs.

Success has bred success. The Federal Government has given $5,100,000 for O.I.C. centers in eight other cities, from Little Rock to Washington, D.C. --the newest was dedicated in Oklahoma City last week--while privately financed programs are under way in 16 more cities, including Los Angeles' Watts. As Sullivan points out, his methods can help all poor people, not just Negroes; in Seattle, about half of the trainees are whites, Eskimos and Japanese-Americans.

Still, the Negro has the biggest problem, and Sullivan envisions a vast array of Negro self-help economic organizations, including many more O.I.C. centers, cooperative apartment houses, shopping centers and banks. "I have protested before," he says, "and I may protest again. But protest without progress is empty. Instead of helping people to reach the milk and honey of heaven, I'm trying to see to it that they get a little ham and eggs now."

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