Education
Steele graduated high school from Druid City High School in Tuscaloosa, Alabama and attended college at Mississippi Valley State University and Oakland University. He received his bachelor's degree from American International University at the Paramaribo Suriname, South America campus. He received an earned Doctorate degree from Mt.
Carmel Theological Seminary. He also holds an Honorary Doctor of Human Letters Degree from the prestigious Stillman College in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, an Honorary Doctorate of Christian from The F.T. Bozeman school of Ministry and Global Evangelical Christian College of Louisiana.
Career
He was the first African American elected to the City Council of Tuscaloosa and one of the first African Americans elected to the Alabama State Senate. In 1985 he was elected to the Tuscaloosa City Council where he served two terms. This was the first home ownership program in West Alabama.
He obtained the funds to build the Bernice Washington Insight Center, a drug treatment center. He organized the Tuscaloosa Drug Task Force and after many years of relenting efforts, the Partners for a Drug free Tuscaloosa County (formerly Tuscaloosa Drug Task Force). During that time the partnership was awarded one million dollars.
In 1994, he was elected to the Alabama state senate, and re-elected three times before resigning to become president of the SCLC in November 2004. In April 2006, he was inducted into the Board of Preachers of Morehouse College. On April 20, 2006 he was inducted into the Tuscaloosa Civic Hall of Fame.
