E. Ginger Sullivan
*E. Ginger Sullivan was born on this date in 1933. She is a Black lawyer and civic health administrator.
E. Ginger Williamson was born to Catherine Caesar and James Williamson in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. She attended Cranville Elementary School and Pittsfield High School. In 1955, Sullivan received her B.A. degree from Northeastern University. She received her J.D. degree from Woodrow Wilson College of Law in the 1970s. While attending Northeastern University, Sullivan was a hepatic research technician at Yale School of Medicine. In 1958, she moved to New York, where she worked as a medical assistant.
Sullivan later joined Massachusetts General Hospital as a cardiovascular researcher. An active member of Christ Church in Boston, Massachusetts, she helped plan the church's trip to attend the March on Washington in 1963. In 1975, Sullivan's husband, Dr. Louis Sullivan, was appointed dean of the Morehouse College Medical Education Program. During his deanship, Sullivan clerked for a Fulton County Superior Court Judge and founded the Friends of Morehouse School of Medicine. After
President George H.W. Bush appointed her husband U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services in 1988; Sullivan served as a spokesperson for the National Cancer Institute on the early detection and treatment of breast and prostate cancers in 1989. During this time, Sullivan also joined the President's Commission on White House Fellowships for three years. 1993, Sullivan and her family returned to Atlanta, where Dr. Louis Sullivan served as president of Morehouse School of Medicine until 2002.
Sullivan was the founder and co-sponsor of The Sullivan 5K Run/Walk Road Race for Health & Fitness on Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts. She has served on the boards of the High Museum of Art, the Alliance Theatre, True Colors Theatre in Atlanta, Wolf Trap, the Shakespeare Theatre in Washington, D.C., and the Arthritis Foundation of Georgia, and was a strong supporter of Medical Education for South African Blacks (MESAB) and Africare. Sullivan was active in the Atlanta community as a Buckhead Cascade Chapter of Links, Inc. member and the auxiliary to the Atlanta Medical Association and the National Medical Association. She and her husband have three children: Paul, Shanta, and Halsted.
