The Black on GM's Board

"Now what's good for General Motors really is good for America," whooped Lyndon Johnson over the telephone in January 1971. He was congratulating the Rev. Leon H. Sullivan, pastor of the 6,000-member Zion Baptist Church in Philadelphia, who had just been chosen as the first black to sit on General Motors' 23-member board of directors. Sullivan's election was widely regarded--not least by Sullivan himself--as an important test of the idea that a black presence in the board room could make a giant corporation more sensitive to the needs of minorities. The 6 ft. 5 in. minister had already acquired a reputation for both militance and pragmatism, first by organizing boycotts that forced scores of Philadelphia businesses to hire more black workers, then by setting up a nationwide string of training centers that teach blacks skills ranging from upholstering to air-traffic control. In an uncompromising statement accepting the GM post, Sullivan insisted that he would not become an apologist for tokenism--indeed, that he would soon resign if blacks did not make large and measurable gains in working for and dealing with GM.

Discuss and Push. Five years later, Sullivan, now 53 and showing flecks of gray in his curly hair, is still on the board--and how much difference has his presence made? It is not easy to say; he has experienced a mixture of satisfactions and disappointments. In a preacher's emphatic voice, he ticks off a list of ways in which GM has used its power to aid black-owned businesses. During his five years, Sullivan boasts, the auto giant has increased its advertising in black publications from 66,000 lines annually to 1.3 million, has opened an account in every one of the nation's 84 black-owned banks and has placed $2.5 billion of the insurance on its buildings with black underwriters. When he joined the board, Sullivan says, GM bought at most $2 million worth of parts and supplies from black manufacturers. This year the figure may go as high as $50 million, and "for the past two years every General Motors car coming off the assembly line has had something in it made by minorities."

But gains for the blacks who work for GM have been less spectacular. Sullivan claims that GM has placed more than 5,000 blacks in white-collar jobs since he joined the company, and added 2,500 more black journeymen and apprentices. Still, blacks last year filled 16.8% of GM's blue-collar jobs--no more than in 1972--and 7% of the white-collar posts, the same proportion as in 1973. When Sullivan became a director, he called loudly for "more black dealerships--I don't mean ten more or 20 more, I mean hundreds more, ultimately." Nonetheless, only 33 of GM's 12,000 dealers are black, an increase of just 21 during Sullivan's term. "It is a pittance," Sullivan confesses. With much justice, he blames the violent 1974-75 slump in car sales for retarding the growth of black employment and dealerships at GM.

Sullivan's most notable failure has been on the issue of GM's manufacturing operations in South Africa. He stirred the first stockholders' meeting that he attended as a director with a passionate denunciation of apartheid and a call for complete GM withdrawal from South Africa, but has never convinced his fellow directors that a pullout would in any way help blacks in that country. Sullivan has swallowed this failure gracefully and now concentrates on getting GM to improve the pay and promotion opportunities of its black South African employees and put up money to build better housing for them.

There is some question about how much of the black gains at GM can be credited to Sullivan personally and how much might have happened anyway. Sullivan concedes that the GM board had begun to take a more "humanist" attitude toward blacks and other minorities before he joined it, but he tries to accelerate the progress. His technique is to develop bench marks toward which GM should strive (some current ones: 100 black dealerships and $100 million a year in purchases from black-owned companies, both by 1978) and then meet personally at least twice a year with a dozen key GM staff people to "discuss, update and push." Says Sullivan: "Broadly considering all the affirmative efforts we are making--dealers, suppliers, investment, job opportunities--I think GM is the leader or close to it" in helping blacks. Then, with a boardroom infighter's pluck, he adds, "Still, that's not enough--by far."

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