CATHELEAN STEELE: LIVING A LIFE OF COURAGE AND HOPE Debbie Ellison, Executive Director of Global Humanitarians Unite
The brave little girl who integrated two schools and rose above hatred grew into the woman who continues to fight racism and leave a better world for young people. It is this kind of courage and the longing to do what’s right that has carried Cathelean Steele through life. She was an educator in Alabama for more than 25 years. Today she is the national program director and event coordinator for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) and wife of the SCLC national president/CEO, Dr. Charles Steele Jr. She has also been the Coordinator for the National SCLC Conference for the past ten years and is the founder of Justice for Girls, a sex trafficking prevention initiative. Born in 1951 in Eutaw, Alabama, she was the oldest of nine children. She says her father was a great follower of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and believed that integrating the schools would make a big difference. And since she was the oldest child in her family, he chose her to integrate. She and her cousin integrated Eutaw High School in Eutaw her first semester of her freshman year. “My cousin and I were the only two Blacks on the bus,” she remembers. “We were called names and had spitballs thrown at us. I lived with my grandparents the first semester. The second semester, I moved to Montgomery with my parents. When I moved to Montgomery, I was excited because I thought, I won’t have to integrate again. My father made me do it again. “I said, ‘Daddy, what school am I going to attend? Am I going to attend Carver High School?’ He said, ‘No, you’re going to integrate Sidney Lanier High School.’ ” When she was in the sixth grade, Dr. King visited a church in Eutaw. “And my daddy took me out of school so that I could meet Dr. King. We could not go into the church because it was packed. So my father said, ‘We’re going to stand outside in the parking lot across the street because when Dr. King finishes his sermon, he’s going to come outside and shake everyone’s hand.’ And sure enough, he came out and across the street, and I got a chance to shake his hand.”
SCLC National Magazine/ King 2022 Issue
21
