Longtime voting rights, education advocate Mildred Madison dies at age 97

Mildred Madison, whose grandparents were slaves and couldn't vote but who went to lengths to ensure her vote counted, died last week at the age of 97.

Madison, who was born in Milwaukee on June 5, 1926, and grew up in Zion, Illinois, spent many years in Cleveland and Detroit, where she spearheaded lasting change for more responsive and accountable government.

For over 70 years, Madison was involved in politics — whether serving as an elected official, working to create change in government, encouraging people to vote or making sure she cast her own ballot. In a guest column that Mildred Madison wrote for the Free Press in 2020, she said that her first time voting was in 1948.

“My mother was relentless in the things that she believed in,” said her daughter, Sharon Madison, of Detroit.

“... She strongly believed in education. The other thing, too, is that every person deserves to be working and to be respected in whatever kind of work that they did. So, it wasn't just about the people at the top of the heap. It was about everybody.”

Legacy of activism

Mildred Madison took pride in voting in more than 70 elections. And in 2020, while she was staying with her son in Zion, Illinois, she hadn’t received her absentee ballot in the mail. So she had her son drive her to the poll in Detroit to cast her vote — a one-day journey that included over 600 miles of driving, according to a CNN article.

“When her ballot didn't come and it was getting close to the election, I had called and it was not guaranteed that that ballot was going to get there, she decided that she was coming here,” said Sharon Madison.

In her 2020 Free Press guest column, Mildred Madison wrote that her grandparents were slaves who had lived in a time when Black people were not allowed to vote, and it was illegal for them to learn how to read and write.

Mildred Madison's father was a physician who fought for privileges for doctors at hospitals, and was involved with the NAACP and the Black business community. Mildred Madison’s mother, a teacher, opened one of the first nursery schools in the country. That school existed for over 50 years, said Sharon Madison.

The drive for civic engagement passed to her children and her grandchildren. As Sharon reflected on her mother's life during an interview on Monday, she said she and her siblings participated in civil rights marches. Mildred Madison’s grandchildren have been active in several movements, including civil rights, Black Lives Matter, LGBTQ+ rights, Women’s March and environmental justice.

Sharon Madison said her mother's passions went beyond politics. Mildred Madison attended Howard University and graduated with a degree in marketing and accounting. During her time in school, she became a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc., and had recently reached her 76th anniversary of membership.

She sang in the Howard University Choir in college and continued her love for music over the years, including swing music, songs from the Motown era, R&B, gospel and more.

She also had ties to entrepreneurship. During college, she met her husband, Julian Madison Sr., who co-founded Madison-Madison International, a global architecture, engineering and construction company that is now owned by Sharon Madison.

And Mildred Madison loved learning. She was an expert when it came to the development of young children and was involved in the education system. She also had a huge respect for trades workers and vocational education and took a class to be a certified concrete specialist when she was about 80 years old, Sharon Madison said.

Read Mildred Madison's 2020 column: I've voted in 71 elections. It's my right — and my duty.

Fighting for responsive government

The Madisons’ four children — Julian Madison Jr., Sharon Madison, Carol Madison and Roberta Madison — were born in Cleveland, Julian Madison's hometown, according to an obituary provided by Mildred Madison's family.

Mildred Madison immediately got to work. She became president of the PTA and later served on the Ohio State Board of Education.

She was the first woman to serve as president of the Cleveland Board of Education. A resolution honoring Madison will be presented during the board's next meeting, Sept. 12.

"Right now, we have board leadership that is made up of a woman named Sara Elaqad, who's our chair, and then I serve as vice chair," said Leah Hudnall, vice chair of the Cleveland Board of Education. "So, us recognizing the contributions of Ms. Madison as the first woman chair of the Cleveland school board while we sit in these seats was very important to us."

Mildred Madison also served two terms on the Cleveland City Council, from 1974 to 1978, according to Charles Mocsiran, the city archivist for the Cleveland council. She sponsored legislation having to do with affirmative action, criminal justice, housing, policing, education and the environment.

She changed the way it was run during her time as the president of the League of Women Voters of Greater Cleveland.

“Cleveland used to have 33 council members, which was an unwieldy number of people,” said Sharon Madison. “So she, as president of the League of Women Voters, petitioned for and got on the ballot — which was later approved by the voters — a reduction in the number of city council members in the city of Cleveland.”

Continuing the fight in Detroit

After losing her husband while in her 80s, Mildred Madison moved to Detroit near Sharon Madison, according to the obituary. Here, she continued to hold government to account.

She became president of the League of Women Voters of Detroit. When looking at Detroit’s city council’s structure, she saw that having all council members represent the city at-large made it difficult for candidates without name recognition to get elected, diminishing accountability, Sharon Madison said.

Madison became a leading voice for establishing council districts across the city, with voters in each district electing a member of council. The effort faltered at first. But she didn’t give up. More people — including several young volunteers — joined her in the initiative to gather signatures, and it was then added to the ballot.

A 2009 Free Press article reads that Mildred Madison, age 83 at the time, watched voting results, with 72% favoring the council-by-district model in which at least seven council members would be elected by district. After the accomplishment, she told the Free Press that she planned to be “semi-retired.”

"She understood politics, she understood government, she understood the power of what women could do. So I just learned so much from her," said Rochelle Riley, the city of Detroit's director of arts and culture, and a former Free Press columnist.

A 2012 revision of the Detroit's City Charter that included council by district was approved by voters in 2012. The first round of council-by-district members were elected in 2013.

"A big part of what has made city government more responsive and accountable to Detroiters has been the change to electing council members by district,” said Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan in a statement. “Mildred Madison was a driving force behind that change and we see the benefits of it every day. She spent her life fighting for the rights of voters and made a tremendous impact that will last for generations to come."

One thing that Sharon Madison hopes people take away from her mother's life is the importance of hard work.

“If you're just concerned about your own world, your own life and the lives of the people that you know, that is not what citizenship is about,” Sharon Madison said. “Being a citizen means that you have responsibilities, and you have to follow those responsibilities.”

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Longtime voting, education advocate Mildred Madison dies at age 97