In the early 1970s, an asset management company called Pax World launched a sustainable mutual fund,

meant to give their clients the option of investing in companies that were not involved in the

Vietnam War, a means of putting their money where their beliefs were, basically, when it came to

that hotly contested military conflict. Around that same time, a list of socially responsible

companies was published in the academic journal, business, and society,

so folks who were keen to invest in stocks, not connected to a variety of social ills, as defined at the time, and by the folks behind that list,

could avoid putting their money into such companies, even indirectly.

In 1977, an African-American preacher, the Reverend Leon Sullivan, developed a set of

principles which became known as the Sullivan Principles, which were meant to help companies

that opposed apartheid in South Africa apply economic pressure to entities instigating and supporting

it. Apartheid was an institutionalized system of racial oppression and bias

built into the South African government from 1948 until the early 1990s.

It was promoted as a means of separating non-white South Africans from white South Africans,

and the outcome of this legalized set of divisions was that non-white South Africans had fewer rights,

fewer means of influencing politics, and were prevented overtly and covertly from being able to own things, attain power, or even pursue relationships across racial lines.

So this was systematized racism that even during a period of heightened global

systematized racism compared to today seemed extreme to many people around the world and many of those people wanted to see this system disappear.

Thus, the Sullivan principles were meant to provide folks who wield power,

and in particular any type of economic power, a means of applying it appropriately, so that

the system going away became more likely, and bare minimum, so that their financial resources

would not be backing even indirectly that system. Sullivan knew something about what he was talking about,

as he was a member of the board of General Motors, which was one of the largest companies

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