Meet Marvin Steele, an inspiring St. Louis character who overcame struggles and achieved success, breaking barriers along the way.
CEO of the Heartland Black Chamber of Commerce Sees the Region Rebounding
One of Marvin Steele’s favorite sayings is “speed plus thrust plus lift minus drag equals flight.”
“If you don’t correct the economic drag in St. Louis, you’re not going to fly the way we want to fly,” said Steele, referring to poverty. He is the president and CEO of the Heartland St. Louis Black Chamber of Commerce, which has about 300 members and an annual budget of $200,000.
Steele is a strong supporter of Black consumers supporting Black-owned businesses. He also is committed to developing partnerships between the Black and white communities and he sees recent progress over the last few years. “There’s a real sense of St. Louis rebounding. We are coming together in this community like we haven’t in probably the last 50 or 60 years,” said Steele, citing a growing social consciousness and a realization that equitable growth benefits everybody.
One of Marvin Steele’s favorite sayings is “speed plus thrust plus lift minus drag equals flight.”
“If you don’t correct the economic drag in St. Louis, you’re not going to fly the way we want to fly,” said Steele, referring to poverty. He is the president and CEO of the Heartland St. Louis Black Chamber of Commerce, which has about 300 members and an annual budget of $200,000.
Steele is a strong supporter of Black consumers supporting Black-owned businesses. He also is committed to developing partnerships between the Black and white communities and he sees recent progress over the last few years. “There’s a real sense of St. Louis rebounding. We are coming together in this community like we haven’t in probably the last 50 or 60 years,” said Steele, citing a growing social consciousness and a realization that equitable growth benefits everybody.
Steele’s family moved from Detroit to St. Louis in the early 1950s. His father, a chemist trained at Tuskegee Institute who worked in his field in Detroit, couldn’t find a comparable job in St. Louis. Instead, he became a porter to Leroy Schneeberger, the owner of Whistle Vess, later known as Vess Beverages. Steele’s grandmother, Lucy Alexander, owned 17 rooming houses in the Mill Creek Valley neighborhood, where about 20,000 people lived in the predominantly-Black neighborhood after World War II. Like many others, his grandmother’s properties were taken by eminent domain, a strategy that St. Louis housing rights activist Ivory Perry said at the time was “Black removal by white approval.” Steele recounted both stories in the Nine PBS podcast “Listen, St. Louis with Carol Daniel.”
After graduating from Antioch College in 1972, Steele worked in Chicago for the Aluminum
Company of America, known as Alcoa. He began as a sales engineer and moved up to managing accounts totaling over $40 million in sales. Returning to St. Louis in the late 1970s, he went on to own a taxi company; a construction firm, and a clinical diagnostic laboratory. Steele served as the deputy director of the city’s development authority during Mayor Vince Schoemehl’s first term and part of his second. Steele now has a development firm, Unicorn LLC, and wants to build homes in North City.
In the interview with Carol Daniel, you explained that when your father came here, he couldn’t find a job in his profession. He was a chemist. You said St. Louis was different than Detroit. Detroit was much more integrated than St. Louis. One of the major things that was different in Detroit was the automobile industry. There was a period in Detroit when Black people were very prominent. My uncle founded the Black bank in Detroit, along with Berry Gordy, who owned Motown – and it’s still there.
Your father was running into St. Louis being ‘of the South,’ the segregation, the ‘we’re not hiring Black people’? Right. My father was very humble and very giving and forgiving. His transition, so to speak, from being in a professional job to being a porter; he didn’t live with pain from that. It was, “I’ve got six kids and I’m going to raise them.” He started a storefront church down on Delmar and Leonard. While he was doing that, my mother was busy with my grandmother buying real estate. Soon, we were collecting rents.
When did you return to St. Louis after working for Alcoa? It was 1978, 1979. When I first got back, my family had some property. I managed the property and tried to determine what I wanted to do. By now, I’m married and I’ve got Marvin Jr.
I was sitting in a restaurant one day and someone saw me in the window and stopped and told me that this guy was running for mayor and it was Vince Schoemehl. Vince was having a gathering at someone’s apartment specifically for Black people and minorities. There was a Q&A and I started asking a bunch of questions. When it was over, he comes up to me and says, “it was interesting what you had to say. Would you mind joining me Monday at my campaign office?”
So I did. He ended up saying “I’d really like to hire you on my campaign, but I don’t think I can afford you.” I said to him “I didn’t ask for any money. I have a contribution for you and we’ll help you.” My entire family went to work for Vince free, doing everything that we thought possible he could need. At the end of that, he wanted to know what I wanted. I told him I wanted to be deputy director of the development authority. My brother, Arnold, worked at City Hall and he was uber-smart and he’s the one who told me that’s where you need to be. So I got that job.
What is your current business venture? I consider myself at this point to be a developer. I want to build 2,000 homes with McBride Homes in the city. The city is laser-focused on what they consider 22 ZIP codes. Most of those zip codes are in north St. Louis and that’s where the concentration will be.
What I want the city to recognize is the last repository of our values is lodged in the faith-based community. Let’s say you find ten churches that want to participate. Take all of that money we have for development; an integrated group of developers, have them be consultants, pay them, attach them to those churches, give all of that vacant land and property to the churches. You would get the developments done.
More about Marvin Steele
Age: 75
Title: President and CEO, the Heartland St Louis Black Chamber of Commerce
Education: Bachelor of arts degree in history, Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio
Residence: Belleville, Illinois
Family: wife, Kathy Walker Steele; son, Marvin Steele Jr.; daughter, Kandyce Kindle; daughter, Kelly King; son, Dr. Chandler Steele.
Favorite inspirational figures: his father, Ruble H. Steele, senior pastor and founder of Steele Temple Church of God in Christ in St Louis; uncle, Hawkins Ruble Steele, founder of Freedom Independence Bank in Detroit; Cliff Gates, founder of Lismark Distribution and Gateway National Bank in St Louis; and Martin Luther King Jr.
Hobbies: Golf and horse-backing with grandchildren.
Favorite places to visit: Oceano Bistro in Clayton and Forest Park — the Missouri History Museum, the Saint Louis Art Museum and the Saint Louis
#StLouis #CharacterSpotlight #InspiringJourneyZoo.
