Biography

Shelby Steele was born on January 1, 1946 in Chicago, Illinois, USA. He is a writer and producer, known for Frontline (1983), What Killed Michael Brown? (2020) and White Guilt (2026). He has been married to Rita Silverman since 1967. They have two children.

After he graduated from high school in Harvey, Illinois, he attended the predominantly white Coe College in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, where he majored in political science. In 1968 he earned a diploma as one of only 18 black graduates in his class. Throughout his undergraduate education Steele was active in the Summer Community Organization and Political Education (SCOPE), a chapter of Dr. Martin Luther King's Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). Although often overlooked, SCOPE engaged in highly effective black voter registration campaigns throughout the American South beginning in 1965.

Steele continued on to graduate study, attending Southern Illinois University where in 1971 he obtained a Master's Degree in sociology. He then went on to the University of Utah, where for three years he taught black literature and in 1974 he earned a Doctoral Degree in English.

Hoover Institution senior fellow.

Father of Eli Steele and Loni Steele Sosthand.

Black identity since the '60s has been a totalitarian identity. It's enforced. And if you don't subscribe to the party line, then you are a betrayer and a dissident, and you are treated as dissidents were treated in the Soviet Union.