Douglass Sullivan-González is a native of Chattanooga, Tennessee, and he completed his Bachelor of Arts with Honors at Samford University and his Master of Divinity and Master of Theology at Princeton Theological Seminary. Sullivan-González taught Church History and Social Ethics from 1984-1986 at the Nicaraguan Baptist Seminary in Managua, Nicaragua. He then completed his Ph.D. in Latin American History at the University of Texas at Austin. His research and dissertation, supported by a Fulbright-Hays dissertation award, focused on the role of priests and parishioners during the formation of the Guatemalan nation, 1839-1871. Pittsburgh Press published in 1998 the revised manuscript as Piety, Power, and Politics. Religion and Nation Formation in Guatemala, 1821-1871. Sullivan-González also translated Edelberto Torres-Rivas’s Interpretación del desarrollo social centroamericano as History and Society in Central America (1993). His co-edited manuscript, with Charles Reagan Wilson, on The South and the Caribbean was published by the University of Mississippi Press in 2001. His current manuscript, The Black Christ of Esquipulas: Religion and Identity in Guatemala, will be published by University of Nebraska Press in 2015.
He and his family moved to Oxford, Mississipppi in 1993. He was appointed associate professor of history at the University of Mississippi and interim pastor at Blackjack Presbyterian Church in Batesville, Mississippi from 2000 to 2001. He became the pastor at Independence Presbyterian Church in 2001. Dr. Sullivan-González was appointed Interim Director of the Sally McDonnell Barksdale Honors College in July 2002 and Dean in January 2003. He continues to serve in this capacity.
Dr. Sullivan-Gonzalez takes an active role or interest in all aspects of Independence Presbyterian Church and St. Andrews Presbytery. He has been very active in the “Living Waters of the World” project serving as the Network Coordinator for Nicaragua for several years. He led the Church to complete three installations of purification systems in Nicaragua.
He is the husband of Maribel Sullivan-González, a native of Nicaragua, and they have two daughters, Frances and Renée. They currently reside in Oxford, Mississippi.