Shelby Steele

The Content of Our Character was written by author, columnist, and filmmaker, Shelby Steele. Steele is now a fellow at the Hoover Institution. Steele has a BA in political science, MA in sociology, and a PhD in English. He taught English at San Jose State University between 1974 and 1991. Early in his life he was involved in both the Civil Rights movement and the black power movement. Steele is the son of mixed race parents and is married to a white woman and has two mixed-race children. All of these factors deeply shape Steele's role in the book, not only as the author but often as a character illustrating Steele's main line of argument.

Steele's main argument in The Content of Our Character is that the Civil Rights Movement got off on the wrong track by building black identity and the idea of black power off of their...