Pratt Center for Community Development

Zion Non-Profit Charitable Trust (ZNPCT), Philadelphia, PA

The abolition of slavery in 1865 removed the most obvious shackles of oppression from the lives of African Americans across the United States. Close to one hundred years later, however, blacks still faced great barriers to full emancipation. Persistent poverty was a more subtle, but no less real form of oppression. While the civil rights movement of the 1950s and early '60s was making impressive headway in eliminating some of the most entrenched forms of institutionalized racism, it still needed to achieve what Reverend Dr. Leon Sullivan saw as the key to true self-determination among blacks - economic emancipation. Rev. Sullivan had experienced poverty growing up in the small town of Charleston, West Virginia. In his early twenties, he had moved up North and become engaged in the struggle for social justice through nonviolent direct action. His mentors were civil rights and religious leaders such as A. Philip Randolph, Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Rev. Adam Clayton Powell. Through this experience, he had become convinced that one of the greatest challenges facing blacks was the need to gain ownership of economic resources. As pastor of Zion Baptist Church in North Philadelphia, Rev. Sullivan set out to start the Progress Movement, a self-help effort that would lead to full economic emancipation among blacks.

Loaves and Fishes: The 10-36 Plan

Inspired by a well-known parable from the Bible, Rev. Sullivan decided to use the church as a vehicle for organizing the black community to consolidate its resources and build a community-owned economic base. In 1962, during one of his Sunday sermons, he introduced his congregation to his vision of self-help through community investment. "One day I preached a sermon at Zion about Jesus feeding the five thousand with a few loaves and a few fish," he recalls. "Everybody put in their little bit and you had enough to feed everybody, and a whole lot left over. So I said, that is what I am going to do with the church and the community. I said, I am going to ask 50 people to put $10 down for 36 months of loaves and fishes and see if we could accumulate resources enough to build something that we would own ourselves." Although Rev. Sullivan had expected about 50 families to sign up for the 10-36 Plan, the response was overwhelming. Over 200 joined the plan that Sunday morning. His idea of bringing people together to invest in a community-owned enterprise had caught fire.

The concept of the 10-36 Plan was to create two separate legal entities. For the first 16 months of the subscription period, investors would contribute to the Zion Non-Profit Charitable Trust (ZNPCT), a community development corporation (CDC) that would support education, scholarships for youth, health services and other programs aimed at social uplift. For the remaining 20 months of the subscription period, investors would make payments to a for-profit corporation, Progress Investment Associates (PIA), which would undertake income-generating projects. At the end of 36 months, subscribers would receive one share of common voting stock and would be entitled to participate in yearly shareholders meetings. As William Downes, the treasurer of the 10-36 Plan and the executive director of ZNPCT explains, the idea of the voting system was to encourage community involvement in the plan.

According to Rev. Sullivan's philosophy, it was important for people to begin by contributing to the nonprofit side of the effort in order to develop a psychology of giving before receiving. It was also important for people to learn basic economic concepts and to see the 10-36 Plan as a long-term investment. Although stockholders were told that they would eventually receive a dividend, they were cautioned not to expect to obtain profits right away. Their most immediate monetary benefit would be a tax deduction for their contributions to the nonprofit. To participate in the 10-36 Plan, investors had to have faith in the idea of investing in a secure future for the next generation. Rev. Sullivan's vision was to use the tools of the free enterprise system to foster something that is vital to community progress - a sense of ownership and a stake in the common good.

Leveraging Resources to Build the Progress Movement

Funds accumulated rapidly under the 10-36 Plan, and were soon used to invest in numerous housing and economic development initiatives. In 1964, PIA made its first investment in an 8-unit apartment building in an all-white community. The rationale for buying this property was that it would help address a long-standing problem facing blacks - racial discrimination in housing. The leaders of the Progress Movement believed that money often has the power to speak louder than words in the struggle to improve race relations. One year after its first investment in housing, PIA built Zion Gardens, a middle-income garden apartment complex in North Philadelphia. The $1 million project was financed by using 10-36 funds to leverage a loan from the Federal Housing Administration and a grant from the U.S.Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).

While pursuing these development projects, Zion continued to build an equity base through the 10-36 Plan. In 1965, the plan was opened to new subscribers from Zion's congregation, and another 450 joined. Over the years, the Progress Movement has had great success with its strategy of using equity accumulated under the 10-36 Plan to leverage funds from public and private sources, including commercial banks and insurance companies.

Transforming Despair into Hope

The Progress Movement was not limited to building a capital base in the black community. Soon after launching the 10-36 Plan, Rev. Sullivan began to focus on the need to remove the barriers that African Americans, particularly youth, faced in their search for employment. With the cooperation of 400 black ministers, Rev. Sullivan organized a selected patronage program that boycotted Philadelphia companies with a record of discriminatory hiring practices. Industry by industry, the campaign succeeded in opening new doors of opportunity for African Americans. But simply making jobs available was not enough. "I found that we needed training. Integration without preparation is frustration," Rev. Sullivan reflects.

In 1964, Zion created the first of what was to become an international network of Opportunities Industrialization Centers (OICs), whose purpose was to train black youth in industrial trades. Because of its symbolic value, Rev. Sullivan chose an abandoned jail house as the site for the center. The Progress Movement's leaders wanted to send the message that it is possible to transform a place of despair into a place of hope and opportunity. In keeping with Zion's self-help mission, Rev. Sullivan recruited residents of the neighborhood to help him renovate the dilapidated building with their own bare hands.

The OIC program proved to be one of the Progress Movement's most enduring successes. With technical assistance and machinery donated by local businesses, OIC trained black youth in electronics, plumbing, machinery, office support, and various other specialized trades. Thanks to the national attention it began to receive after a visit by President Lyndon B. Johnson, the Philadelphia OIC was able to secure significant federal support for its programs. One of the most important factors in its success was its link to Zion's various development activities. Because other initiatives launched as part of the Progress Movement created construction jobs, OIC trainees had opportunities to build their skills in the work place. For instance, OIC trained Philadelphia's first black plumbers and electricians by allowing them to gain practical experience on the Zion Gardens housing project.

Over the years, OIC has expanded into a large network of branches across the country. OIC of America, which is headquartered in Philadelphia and currently directed by Arthur Taylor, has prepared over one million people for the job market during its thirty years of operation. The OIC model has also been transported abroad. OIC International now has branches in Africa, the Caribbean, and Eastern and Western Europe.

The Building of Progress Plaza

After establishing the OIC in the mid-1960s, Zion's next major undertaking was the fulfillment of Rev. Sullivan's dream of building the nation's first black-owned and developed shopping center. In addition to addressing his concern about the lack of black ownership of major businesses in America, the project would deal with the problem of unemployment in North Philadelphia by generating a substantial number of jobs. After convincing the city's Redevelopment Authority to donate land for the project, Rev. Sullivan set out to raise the capital needed to build the shopping center. "So I went to the chairman of the bank and I said, I want a construction loan," he recounts. "He said, well Reverend, you need some equity for something like this. Think about it and come back later in two, three or four years, and let's see what we can do." Rev. Sullivan was already prepared for that challenge, however. "Give me the sack," he told Zion's treasurer, William Downes. "I opened it up and $400,000 worth of equities came out," he describes. "The man's eye glasses fell off his eyes. He came around the table and took my hand and said, Reverend, we can work together." Rev. Sullivan's theory about the power of money to deal with persistent racial inequalities was proving to be correct. As he concludes, "I found that $400,000 makes a difference in race relations in America!"

Progress Plaza, which is located on Broad Street, one of Philadelphia's main thoroughfares, was dedicated in 1968 before a crowd of 10,000 well-wishers. In some sense, the shopping center was the culmination of the Progress Movement's multiple goals. Because it was a major construction project, it created a large number of construction jobs for participants in the OIC program. Through an agreement negotiated with Progress Plaza's chain store tenants, the shopping center also made numerous management job opportunities available to African Americans. To fulfill another one of the Progress Movement's primary goals - to encourage the development of black-owned businesses - ZNPCT created an Entrepreneurial Training Center at Progress Plaza. With major funding from the Ford Foundation, the center was able to offer managerial and entrepreneurial skills training to hundreds of area residents. Today, over half of the 16 stores in Progress Plaza are black-owned businesses.

Another one of the Progress Movement's major goals was to address the social needs of North Philadelphia's community residents. To this end, ZNPCT built a comprehensive Human Services Center that centralizes essential services so that they are easily accessible to area residents. Zion's role was to develop the property and lease it at below-market rent to nonprofit and governmental entities whose programs fulfill ZNPCT's charitable mission. Located adjacent to Progress Plaza, the Center currently houses a Social Security Administration office, an unemployment compensation office, a police training academy, and a health service center run by Temple University.

Expanding the Progress Movement's Economic Base

In 1968, Zion Baptist Church broadened the base of the 10-36 Plan by making it available to investors from the wider black community, and another 3,300 people subscribed. With this expanded source of equity, ZNPCT was able to acquire and lease property and invest in numerous minority-owned enterprises to further Zion's mission of economic development and job training and placement. With technical assistance from the General Electric Company, a training contract with the U.S. Department of Labor and a $680,000 bank loan, Progress Investment Associates launched the nation's first black-owned aerospace enterprise. Over the next few years, Zion also went on to purchase and develop an industrial park, to create a construction company to enter into joint ventures with major contractors, to invest in a garment manufacturing enterprise, and to build a second shopping center in West Philadelphia. While some of these businesses eventually folded, a number of Zion's economic development ventures flourished, particularly its shopping centers.

Creating Decent, Affordable Housing

During the 1970s, ZNPCT continued to invest in real estate and serve as a catalyst in the creation of various Progress Movement-related entities. For instance, in 1974 Zion helped create a housing development company to save 120 HUD-assisted rental town houses that were in default on their loans. In keeping with the Progress Movement's belief in the importance of self-help and ownership, Zion came up with a plan to help the tenants of the Mill Creek housing complex to purchase and rehabilitate their homes. Zion's role was to manage the transition and help the homeowners to secure loans to rehabilitate their property. Today, Rev. Sullivan points to Mill Creek as a model of success in creating neighborhood stability and pride through homeownership. He also cites the creation of Opportunities Towers, a housing complex for the elderly and handicapped, as a major success in addressing the need for decent, affordable housing in North Philadelphia. So far, two towers have been built, and a third is in the pipeline.

Organizational Transformations

Since its early days as an active CDC with a direct hand in launching the Progress Movement's various community development initiatives, ZNPCT's role has diminished. Nevertheless, other entities created as part of the Progress Movement, particularly OIC of America, have continued to grow and play a critical role in advancing Rev. Sullivan's original idea of self-help through community investment. Recently, the long-term fruits of this concept have become very evident to the original investors in the 10-36 Plan. In 1991, these stockholders received their first dividend. What has been more important than this individual gain, however, has been the Progress Movement's ability to build a sense of community pride in ownership among its participants.

In 1988, after 38 years of service at Zion Baptist Church, Rev. Sullivan retired and was named Pastor Emeritus, thus allowing him to further his goal of building bridges between African Americans and the people of Africa. Today, he remains optimistic about the possibility of realizing his vision of a future in which all blacks around the world have the opportunity to benefit from the fruits of the Progress Movement. Despite his official retirement from Zion, he remains a tireless, active champion of that cause across America and throughout Africa.

Zion Non-Profit Charitable Trust (ZNPCT)
1501 North Broad Street
Philadelphia, PA 19122
(215) 236-7578