The Algernon Sydney Sullivan and Mary Mildred Sullivan awards have been given out since 1890. The awards were first presented by the membership of the New York Southern Society, including former US President Grover Cleveland. They recognize college students and members of the college community of noble character who have acted as humble servants to others by putting service of others before self-interest. The award is presented each year by more than 70 colleges and universities within the American South.
The Algernon Sydney Sullivan Foundation presents scholarships to students at 25 private colleges and universities in the American South. The Foundation currently awards approximately $500,000 annually in scholarship funds to participating schools and has established endowment funds at most schools to support Sullivan Scholarships as well as social entrepreneurship programming.
The Sullivan Scholarships are based on the students’ personal character, integrity, and service to others and to their communities. Sullivan Scholarships are not awarded on the basis of financial need, nor for academic or athletic achievement. Each individual school selects its recipients.
The Algernon Sydney Sullivan Foundation was founded in 1934, but its roots go back nearly 80 years earlier, when Algernon Sydney Sullivan himself was a young lawyer in Indiana. He used his legal talents and personal wealth to help those in trouble in his community, sometimes at great personal cost.
When Algernon and his wife Mary Mildred Sullivan moved to New York in 1856, they remained dedicated to the cause of helping people in trouble. Both of the Sullivans were decidedly anti-slavery, but they were loyal to the South and advocated for the humane treatment of Confederate prisoners during and after the Civil War. A believer in equality for all, Algernon also sponsored the first African-American member of the New York Bar Association. By the end of his life, Algernon was so well thought of that all courts in New York were closed in his memory upon his death in 1887. He remains the last private citizen to receive such an honor.
The honor that Algernon would have appreciated the most, however, was the one he received when the New York Southern Society – an organization he himself founded – established the Algernon Sydney Sullivan Award in 1890 to recognize students with distinguished records of service.
Algernon and Mary’s only son, George, continued and cemented the Sullivans’ legacy when, in 1934, he created the Sullivan Foundation to ensure the continued existence of the awards. The Foundation remains as strong as ever today and has grown to expand the reach of the Sullivan spirit far beyond what Algernon and Mary would have ever thought possible.