#FlashbackFriday: The Story of BG Toreaser Steele, the Exchange’s 1st Black Commander
In honor of Black History Month, Flashback Friday remembers Brig. Gen. Toreaser Steele, the only Black commander in Exchange history and its second female commander.
Steele served as commander from April 2005, when Maj. Gen. Kathryn Frost retired, to June 2005, when Maj. Gen. Paul Essex arrived. She had been vice commander since July 22, 2002.
In a 2003 Exchange Post column timed for Black History Month, Steele shared some of her life story. She grew up in middle-Tennessee backwoods with her mother, stepfather, six of her seven sisters, three brothers and her step-grandparents—all in one house.
“I am the daughter of sharecroppers,” she wrote. “That means we lived on someone else’s land, worked their fields, charged our food at their local grocery store and tried to work off our debt during the year so that we could make a profit at the end of the year. The best we ever did was break even a few times.”
During a 2021 interview with Vets N Transition, Steele said she also spent time with her biological father and stepmother. “I like to say that God knew that I was the little girl who needed extra,” she said. “So he gave me two sets of parents and four sets of grandparents.”
Brig. Gen. Toreaser Steele
Steele went to elementary school in a one-room schoolhouse, mentored by a teacher who pushed her to achieve her full potential. She had similar support in high school.
Eventually her stepfather found work as a mechanic, but he still made less than $3,000 a year to support a family of 14 in 1970. She enrolled in Tennessee State University, supported by a student loan, an equal-opportunity grant and work-study.
During her first week at Tennessee State, she was walking to a class when she passed by an Air Force ROTC recruiting event. One of the instructors stopped her to talk. She learned that she could apply for an ROTC scholarship and signed up. Near the end of her freshman year, she received a three-year scholarship
“But the school took away my loan, my grant and tried to take away my work-study,” she wrote. “My professor of aerospace studies joined me in my fight to keep my work-study, which was my only means to pay the bills the scholarship didn’t cover.”
Steele began her Air Force career in 1974 as a personnel officer. She received several major awards and decorations throughout her career, including the Defense Superior Service Medal and Legion of Merit with oak leaf cluster. She was promoted to brigadier general on April 1, 2001. She retired in September 2005 after 31 years of service.
“My upbringing was one of a person, delivered by God from the cotton fields and the vegetable fields, the outhouses and carrying water for the home from about a quarter of a mile away, to become a member of the United States military,” she told Vets N Transition.
You can watch Steele’s interview with Vets N Transition here.
Sources: Exchange Post archives, Vets N Transition, Exchange History on Flickr
Thank you for your years of service and sacrifice. You are a true hero, and inspiration.
I remember General Steele as very funny and charismatic person. I had the pleasure of meeting her a few times, and the impression she left with me made me proud of the company I work for.
What an inspiring article (it should be in a book). Thank you for your service, and for setting the example that your latter can be even greater than your former. If you don’t despise small beginnings, but keep focus on God, work hard and push through.
I did not meet her, but I remember her face in my year book from basic training. I was 20 years old in 1996, entering basic training in San Antonio, coming from Mississippi. It was just something about seeing a women who looks like me in her position. I never forgot it. I was happy to read about her background. Now I can see where the strength in her picture came from. Thank You for your many years of service and being a shining example.