Julian Steele Explained

Birth Name:Julian Denegal Steele
Birth Date:October 20, 1906
Birth Place:Savannah, Georgia, U.S.
Death Place:West Newbury, Massachusetts, U.S.
Occupation:Social worker, politician, civil rights activist, church leader
Children:Emilie Dawes Steele

Julian Denegal Steele (October 20, 1906 – January 17, 1970) was an American social worker, activist, and federal, state, and local office holder—often the first black person to hold such a post in New England.

Early life and education

Steele was born on October 20, 1906, in Savannah, Georgia,[1] [2] home to his father's family for several generations. His father, Alexander McPherson Steele, was a postal worker.[3] [4] Around age seven, Steele moved with his family to Boston, Massachusetts his mother's hometown. Steele’s mother, Minnie Sarah Ellis Steele, was the daughter of a Jamaican minister, Rev. Alexander Ellis, who served as a pastor in Boston.[5] [6] Steele’s brother, Joseph Alexander Ellis Steele, was a noted jazz musician. Steele attended Boston Latin School, graduated cum laude from Harvard University in 1929,[7] and pursued graduate studies in social work in New York City.

Social work career and mixed marriage

Upon completion of his studies, Steele became director of Boston's Robert Gould Shaw Settlement House in Roxbury.[8] There he met his future wife, Mary Bradley Dawes,[9] who worked in the settlement's day nursery.[10] Controversy associated with his impending mixed-race marriage forced Steele to resign his position at the Shaw Settlement.[11] [12] Students at Ward Belmont College in Nashville, Tennessee, where Mary Dawes studied prior to obtaining her BA from Boston University in early childhood education,[13] hung two “Negroes” in effigy to protest the engagement.

Following a discreet six-year courtship, the quiet May, 1938 wedding in New York City between a "Negro social worker" and the "daughter of an old New England family" generated nationwide press.[14] [15] [16] In Congress, Mississippi Senator Theodore Bilbo commented that Mary Dawes "appears to be sustained in her mad insane determination to mingle blood impregnated with the highest genetic values of the Caucasian and the blood of an African whose racial strains have dwelt for six thousand years or more in the jungles of a continent.”[17] Notwithstanding the controversy, in 1939 Julian Steele began work heading up Boston's new Armstrong Hemenway Foundation, focusing on affordable housing.[18]

Life in small town New England: Massachusetts' first black town moderator

In 1943, Julian and Mary Steele purchased a farm in West Newbury, Massachusetts,[19] a predominately rural North Shore town within commuting distance of Steele's work in Boston.[20] They moved to that town when their daughter, born in 1944,[21] was a baby. Steele, who established a dairy herd for his working farm, said that the countryside held appeal as a good place to have a family.[22] He also stated,"In West Newbury a man can be an avid admirer of Senator Joe McCarthy and an equally avid advocate of racial and religious tolerance."[23]

In March 1952, Julian Steele, the only black voter among some 1,500 residents, was elected West Newbury's town meeting moderator. He was the first black town moderator in Massachusetts.[24] Townspeople credited him with "elevating the cultural life of the community."[25] Steele was a founder and the moderator of West Newbury's "wide-awake Town Hall Forum," a weekly lecture series and he participated in the town's summer theater.[26] Steele was instrumental in the decision of renowned African-American tenor Roland Hayes to purchase a summer home in West Newbury[27] on Crane Neck Street, just up from the Steele farm.[28] Hayes, in turn, performed at local events including a charity concert in West Newbury town hall.[29]

For at least a decade, Steele was Massachusetts' only black town moderator.[30] In the direct democracy of New England town meeting, the moderator serves to supervise, guide, and referee townspeople's debate leading to votes determining the course of municipal budgets and agendas for the coming year.[31] At the time of Steele's election, local writer Margaret Coit described town meeting as West Newbury's "favorite indoor sport," where free speech was the rule and "controversy was cherished for its own sake."[32] Steele served as West Newbury's moderator until his death.

Career as a state and federal official

Julian Steele held a number of state and federal posts, often as the first black person in the position. He was appointed to the Massachusetts Parole Board in 1954.[33] During his tenure, Massachusetts conducted an evaluation of the death penalty. The state Attorney General supported repeal,[34] those opposing capital punishment asserted that it usually reflected race or class prejudice, while the minority who favored it cited deterrence. The parole board was divided: Steele favored abolishment, saying "the state should not take a human life because the state cannot create it."[35] When Steele, the sole remaining Republican on the parole board, was passed over for reappointment in favor of a Democratic candidate, civic and religious groups protested the alleged politicization of the board.[36]

In 1960, Steele was appointed assistant administrator of the U.S. Housing and Home Financing Agency, with responsibility for New England and New York. Massachusetts Senator Leverett Saltonstall said at the time that Steele was the first black person appointed to such a high position in that agency.[37] Steele became the Deputy Commissioner of Urban Renewal in Massachusetts' Department of Commerce and Development in 1965.[38] When he was appointed commissioner of Massachusetts' new Department of Community Affairs in 1968, Steele became the first black person to head an agency in the state. At Steele's swearing in, Governor John Volpe called Steele the “ideal man to carry forth with the development, renewal and rehabilitation of the communities in the Commonwealth and the mobilization of state forces to fight poverty.”[39]

Civil rights advocacy and church leadership

Steele's assertion, "Human progress can be measured largely in terms of acceptance of difference as interesting and our common humanity as profoundly important"[40] [7] informed his activism in civic and religious fields. Throughout his life, he advocated for a number of causes, among them civil rights[41] [42] and affordable housing.[43] [44]

A 1937 profile in The Crisis, the magazine of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, cataloged Julian Steele's activities as a young professional ranging from organizing aid for Ethiopia to working with Boston planners on housing—all in furtherance of his "cardinal principle . . . that Negroes must cooperate with whites."[8] Steele held several leadership posts with the NAACP beginning in the 1940s,[45] including president of the Boston Branch.[46] [47] In 1958 he was elected president of Boston's Urban League.[48]

Julian Steele also assumed leadership positions in church groups. Active in his church in West Newbury, he became moderator for the Congregationalists of Essex County and then vice-moderator for Massachusetts.[49] In 1954 Steele was named the first black moderator (principal layman) of the Massachusetts Congregational Christian Conference,[50] a denomination descending directly from the Puritans.[51]

Death and legacy

On January 17, 1970, Steele died of a heart attack in his sleep at home in West Newbury. After services in Roxbury attended by some 800 mourners, Steele was buried in West Newbury.[52] Steele was the subject of an appreciation in the Congressional Record, and at its 1971 annual town meeting, the Town of West Newbury read a proclamation stating in part that "in the passing of Julian Steele who served the Town as Moderator, the Town has lost a valuable and faithful public servant who has left an example of a life worthy of the emulation of all."[53]

An elders' housing center in Melrose, Massachusetts, was named after Steele in the months following his death.[54] A 1950's-era housing project in Lowell, Massachusetts, since razed, was also named for him.[55] In 2019, the Town of West Newbury voted to erect a historical marker in Steele's honor in front of Town Hall.[56] A collection of his papers is housed in the Archival Research Center at Boston University.[57]

Notes and References

  1. Yesterday in Afro-American History . Jet . October 22, 1970 . XXXIX . 3 . 10 . 17 August 2019 . 0021-5996.
  2. News: Julian Steele, State Agency Head, Dies . 11 August 2019 . The Berkshire Eagle . January 19, 1970 . Pittsfield, Massachusetts. 2.
  3. News: Negro and White Secretly Marry in New York City . 17 August 2019 . The Dunkirk Evening Observer . May 11, 1938 . Dunkirk, Chautauqua, New York . 1.
  4. Department of Commerce and Labor, Bureau of the Census . Railway Mail Service . U.S., Register of Civil, Military, and Naval Service, 1863–1959 . 1905 . 3 . 1624/1636 . 17 August 2019.
  5. News: Joy Street Methodist Church: Charles Sumner the Champion of the Colored Race—The Reverend Alexander Ellis's Sermon . 17 August 2019 . The Boston Globe . March 16, 1974 . 2.
  6. News: Notices: A complimentary testimonial dinner will be given Rev. Alexander Ellis on his retirement after fourteen years of service in Boston . 17 August 2019 . The Boston Globe . January 20, 1882 . 2.
  7. News: Davis . William A. . Massachusetts Community Affairs Commissioner Julian D. Steele, 63 . 11 August 2019 . The Boston Globe . January 18, 1970 . 65.
  8. Harrison . W.E. . Wilkins . Roy . The Robert Shaw Gould House . The Crisis . March 1937 . 44 . 3 . 79–80 . 14 August 2019.
  9. News: Boston Socialite Weds Negro Social Worker; Bride Related to General Dawes, Met in Settlement House, Engaged Long Time . 17 August 2019 . The San Francisco Examiner . May 12, 1938 . 8.
  10. News: Says Negroes Lead in Several Ways: Dr. Cabot Sees Superiority in Song, Stories, and Nerve . 11 August 2019 . The Boston Globe . February 17, 1932 . 2.
  11. Book: Sarah Deutsch . O'Toole . James M. . Quigley . David . Boston's Histories: Essays in Honor of Thomas H. O'Connor . 2004 . Northeastern University Press . Boston . 978-1-55553-582-7 . 199 . registration . steele. . 12 August 2019 . The Politics of Sex and Race in Boston's NAACP, 1920-1940.
  12. News: Negro Social Worker and White Girl Wed: Mary B. Dawes, Former Schoolteacher, Bride of Steele at Quiet Ceremony in New York . 11 August 2019 . The Boston Globe . May 11, 1938 . 10.
  13. News: Mary B. Steele, 85; Specialist in Early Childhood Education . 16 August 2019 . The Boston Globe . January 15, 1993 . 75.
  14. News: Strange Romance . 11 August 2019 . Stevens Point Journal . May 14, 1938 . Wisconsin . 10.
  15. News: Mixed Wedding Revealed: Social Worker, Colored Mate, on Honeymoon . 11 August 2019 . Daily News . May 12, 1938 . New York . 1.
  16. News: Mary Dawes, Boston Society Girl, Is Married to Negro: Daughter of Old New England Family Is Secretly Wed to Julian Steele, Social Worker . 11 August 2019 . The Record . May 11, 1938 . Hackensack, New Jersey . 2.
  17. Book: Rogers . J.A. . Sex and Race, Volume 3: Negro-Caucasian Mixing in All Ages and All Lands – Why White and Black Mix in Spite of Opposition . 1944 . Wesleyan University Press . 978-0-8195-7509-8 . 42 . 5th . 13 August 2019 . citing April 24, 1939 Congressional Record p. 4654.
  18. News: Julian Steele Head of New Foundation: Shaw House Ex-Director in Social Service Post . 11 August 2019 . The Boston Globe . March 9, 1939 . 13.
  19. Web site: Deed . salemdeeds.com . Essex County, Massachusetts . 12 August 2019 . Book 3330 Page 395 . May 26, 1943.
  20. News: Coit . Margaret L. . Looking Backward and Forward at 150 . 13 August 2019 . The New York Times . August 17, 1969 . 13/440.
  21. News: Baby Born to Harvard Negro and White Wife . 12 August 2019 . Daily News . U.P. . September 6, 1944 . New York . 4.
  22. News: Marion . Frieda . Julian D. Steele, Nationally Known Welfare Worker, Has Farm Estate in West Newbury . 12 August 2019 . Newburyport Daily News and Newburyport Herald . March 2, 1950 . A15/23.
  23. Georgia-Born Moderator Has Strong Yankee Background . Ebony . October 1953 . 8 . 12 . 58 . https://web.archive.org/web/20190812230842/http://connection.ebscohost.com/c/articles/48900838/georgia-born-moderator-has-strong-yankee-background . dead . 2019-08-12 . 12 August 2019.
  24. News: West Newbury: Julian D. Steele Is New Town Moderator . 12 August 2019 . The Boston Globe . AP . March 4, 1952 . 25.
  25. News: Bay State Negro Elected: Town Names Only Voter of His Race to Be Moderator . 13 August 2019 . The New York Times . AP . March 5, 1952 . 24.
  26. News: New Summer Theatre . 13 August 2019 . The Boston Globe . March 14, 1947 . 27.
  27. News: Roland Hayes, Noted Singer To Be Eagerly Welcomed as Resident of West Newbury . 13 August 2019 . Newburyport Daily News and Newburyport Herald . November 11, 1946 . 11.
  28. News: de Lue . Willard . Meet Mary Ellen Who's 'Going to Meet the Kids' . 13 August 2019 . The Boston Globe . March 7, 1951 . 20.
  29. News: Roland Hayes Enthralls West Newbury Hearers: World Famed Tenor Dedicates His Talent to Aid Civic Cause in His Adopted Home Town . 13 August 2019 . Newburyport Daily News and Newburyport Herald . March 5, 1949 . 1.
  30. News: Rollins . Bryant . West Newbury Formula: 'A Touch of Humor Cools the Hotheads' . 12 August 2019 . The Boston Globe . February 28, 1962 . 25.
  31. Web site: A Citizen's Guide to Town Meetings . Citizen's Guide to Town Meetings . William Francis Galvin, Secretary of the Commonwealth, Citizen Information Service . 15 August 2019 . 2/8,6/12,7/13.
  32. News: Coit . Margaret L. . The Small Town Under Big Pressures: Urgent new pressures threaten old frugality at a New England hamlet's annual meeting . 13 August 2019 . The New York Times . February 24, 1952 . 20/196, 21/197, 23/199 . contains photos of town hall, Julian Steele and his predecessor moderator.
  33. News: Julian Steele Sworn as Parole Board Member . 13 August 2019 . The Boston Globe . June 3, 1954 . 3.
  34. News: Lewis . William J. . Repeal Urged By McCormack . 13 August 2019 . The Boston Globe . March 19, 1959 . 1.
  35. News: Parole Board Splits on Abolishing of the Death Penalty . 13 August 2019 . The North Adams Transcript . December 3, 1957 . 7.
  36. News: Fercolo Change in Parole Board Strongly Protested . 13 August 2019 . The Berkshire Eagle . May 20, 1959 . Pittsfield, Massachusetts. 16.
  37. News: Steele Installed as Top Aide in U.S. Agency . 13 August 2019 . The Boston Globe . August 12, 1960 . 3.
  38. News: 3 New Commerce Deputies Named By Gov. Volpe . 13 August 2019 . The North Adams Transcript . March 10, 1965 . 3.
  39. News: Steele, First Negro to Head State Agency, Sworn in . 13 August 2019 . The Boston Globe . November 7, 1968 . 26.
  40. Julian Steele: Extended Remarks of Hon. Hastings Keith of Massachusetts in the House of Representatives . U.S. Congressional Record . April 8, 1970 . 116 . Part 8 . 11139 . 16 August 2019.
  41. Dean . Amy . Connections: How Special Collections, archival holdings tell the story of our time: Julian Steele's fight for Negro nurses and physicians . B.U. Bridge . February 22, 2002 . V . 25 .
  42. News: Peace Problem Begins Here, Says Julian Steele . The Berkshire Eagle . February 6, 1945 . Pittsfield, Massachusetts. 9.
  43. News: Lewis . William J. . Cost of Housing 'Imperils Building Program' . 14 August 2019 . The Boston Globe . December 15, 1969 . 5.
  44. News: Wilson . David B. . Political Circuit: A House Free of Debt for All! . 14 August 2019 . The Boston Globe . May 16, 1968 . 27.
  45. Web site: The Inventory of the Julian Steele Collection #727 . Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center . Boston University . 14 August 2019 . 30.
  46. News: Mass Meeting Will Hear Plan for Racial Peace . 14 August 2019 . The Boston Globe . July 9, 1943 . 13.
  47. Moon . Henry Lee . In Memoriam: January 16, West Newbury, Mass. Julian D. Steele . The Crisis . March 1970 . 77 . 3 . 115 . 0011-1422.
  48. News: Boston Urban League Elects Julian Steele . 14 August 2019 . The Boston Globe . February 27, 1958 . 29.
  49. Negro Named Vice-Moderator of Mass. Churches . Jet . June 18, 1953 . IV . 6 . 36 . 15 August 2019 . 0021-5996.
  50. News: West Newbury Negro Heads Church Alliance . 15 August 2019 . The Boston Globe . May 18, 1954 . 1.
  51. Web site: The Congregational Christian Tradition . Congregational Library and Archives History Matters . Congregational Library and Archives . 15 August 2019.
  52. News: 800 Attend Services for Julian Steele, 63 . 16 August 2019 . The Boston Globe . January 21, 1970 . 39.
  53. Annual Statement of the Receipts and Expenditures of the Town of West Newbury for the Fiscal Year Ending December 31, 1971, Together with the Reports of the School Committee, Board of Engineers, Trustees of the Public Library, Assessors, Auditor, Treasurer and Collector and the Statistics of the Town Clerk . Annual Report of the Town of West Newbury . FY 1971 . 11 . Annual Town Meeting – 1971 . 17 August 2019.
  54. News: Center Named After J. Steele . 16 August 2019 . The Boston Globe . March 24, 1970 . 3.
  55. News: McConville . Christine . City Seeks to Raze Site, Despite Appeal . 16 August 2019 . The Boston Globe . January 12, 2003 . 1/199, 4/203.
  56. News: West Newbury Special Town Meeting Results . 6 November 2019 . Newburyport Daily News . November 5, 2019.
  57. Web site: The Inventory of the Julian Steele Collection #727 . Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center . Boston University . 14 August 2019.

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Julian Steele".

Except where otherwise indicated, Everything.Explained.Today is © Copyright 2009-2024, A B Cryer, All Rights Reserved. Cookie policy.