Pueblo humanitarian Ruth Steele, who spent her entire life advocating for civil rights and the preservation of Black history, died Jan. 17 from stomach cancer at the age of 85.
Steele, a founder of the Pueblo Martin Luther King Jr. Holiday Commission, was best known for her efforts to bring the Martin Luther King Jr. Day holiday to Pueblo in the 1980s and her preservation of the historic Lincoln Home — a former orphanage and senior home for Pueblo’s Black population that Steele later transformed into the Pueblo Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Holiday Commission and Cultural Center and Museum.
Her death came one day after the holiday commission’s annual march through Pueblo to commemorate King’s life, which Steele led for more than three decades, and one day prior to the federal MLK holiday.