by Eric Ture Muhammad
Staff Writer

WASHINGTON�"I want to thank you so much for coming from so many distances and listening to what are plans are and what we pray God helps us to accomplish," said the Reverend Leon Su llivan, chairman of the African-African American Summit at a Sept. 27, news conference.

Held at the National Press Club, Rev. Sullivan announced the group�s plans for its sixth African-African American Summit May 19-25, 2001 in Abuja, Nigeria. The summit�s purpose is to build bridges between Blacks in America, the Diaspora, friends of Africa and the continent itself to enhance Africa�s economic development and improve her quality of life.

"I am 77-years-old, I have a few more years and in these few years we are going to get this done," he pledged. "We are going to complete this bridge and in a hundred years from now, people will look at Africa in another light," he continued.

Mr. Sullivan, is the summit convener and author of "The Sullivan Principles," a corporate code of ethics, which contributed largely to corporate divestment during white-minority rule in South Africa.

He said that the group�s decision to host the gathering expected to draw some 10,000 delegates, 700 businesses and nearly 100 world leaders and heads of state, in Abuja introduces the world to a new Africa.

"It�s the new city. It�s a city being built and it is symbolic of the new Africa," declared Rev. Sullivan. "If you want to see what the new Africa prospect looks like, you want to see Abuja."

The African-African American Summit has made extraordinary advancement since its inception. In previous years, the biennial summits were held in Cote d�Iviore, Gabon, Senegal, Zimbabwe and Ghana.

The summit�s initiatives include the Sub-Saharan Africa Campaign (S.O.S.: Help the Children of Africa), Self-Help Investment Plan, Teachers for Africa Program, Debt of Development Program, Best and Brightest African Bankers Program, Team of American Physicians Program, Schools for Africa, and the Dual Citizenship Program. After the fifth summit, the group launched the Global Sullivan Principles of Corporate Responsibility and an HIV/AIDS program.

Reflecting on the group�s humble beginnings in 1989, in Washington, Rev. Sullivan said that the division between Africa and Blacks in America was "as broad as a gulf. There was a great chasm and the most important thing first was to bridge that gulf," he told The Final Call. "That was in my mind and in my heart. If we can just bring us to see each other as one, then those things that I hoped to achieve would be realized," he said.

Since that time the summit has brought thousands of people to the continent, produced hundreds of millions of dollars in investment to Africa and, so far, built 200 schools in West Africa, as part of a joint plan with the Organization of African Unity to build 3,000 schools in the course of 10 years. All funds were raised through corporate and private donors, Mr. Sullivan said.

"I take no money from the United States government at all," he declared. "Nothing. They cannot give me anything, because then they can tell me what to do and that won�t work with me," he said. Mr. Sullivan said the U.S. helps with programs and provides charter assistance to fly supplies, experts and equipment to the regions of Africa, but does not supply direct financial assistance.

The 2001 conference will focus mainly on education, business, agriculture and the summit HIV/AIDS initiative. "We hear a lot of talk about what people and governments want to do and intend to do about it, but we don�t see anything," said Mr. Sullivan, adding that summit activity would encourage $2 billion in new investment to help finance projects. A newly formed Personal Investment Program has already raised $600,000, matched by OPEC nations dollar-for-dollar to enhance small business in Africa.

The group hopes to have raised $1 million before the start of its confab and the first contributions will go to Ghana, next Ethiopia and then South Africa, he concluded.

The press conference was moderated by Dr. C.T. Wright, summit coordinator, with a welcome on behalf of Nigeria expressed by Bede U. Ibeh, senior counselor for the Nigerian Embassy. Also in attendance was South African Ambassador Sheila M. Sisulu; Deputy Chief Francis A. Tsegah of Ghana, First Secretary Issa Daher Bouraleh of Djibouti, ambassadors from Botswana and Zimbabwe; Melvin P. Foote of Constituency for Africa and Staccato Powell, the newly-elected president of Opportunities Industrialization Centers of America, Inc.