M A D I S O N  B I O 

It was then, 1974, that the NAACP board of directors named him at the age of 24, Executive Director of the 10,000 member Detroit NAACP, becoming the youngest person appointed to that position.

Madison’s leadership skills, commitment, and ability to inspire those around him while leading the Detroit Chapter, led to his promotion as director of the NAACP Political Action Department in 1978, by former president and CEO of the NAACP, Dr. Benjamin L. Hooks.

Between 1984-1986, Madison led four separate voter registration marches called “The Overground Railroad” in which he and hundreds of volunteers walked from Richmond, Virginia to Harlem, NY; San Francisco to Los Angeles; Louisville, KY to Detroit, and the final march from Los Angeles to Baltimore, Maryland. His efforts to register new voters were entered in the Congressional Record by former Maryland Congressman Parren Mitchell.

In 1986, Madison’s talents were called upon once again, when NAACP convention delegates elected him to the national board of directors and re-elected him for the next 14 years. In 1996, Madison accepted the challenge of restoring prominence to the NAACP Image Awards when he was appointed its chairman. At the time of his appointment, the Image Awards was $2.5 million in debt and near termination. But under Madison’s leadership the Image Awards regained its national prominence, and reversed its debt position to $1 million in profits within two years.

Directing a major civil rights organization, registering voters, marching in the streets, and giving lectures would be enough to demonstrate one’s commitment to social justice, and rightly so. Yet, in the midst of his civil rights activism, Madison started another career as a socially conscious radio talk show personality in 1980 on Detroit’s WXYZ-AM.

Madison not only uses his microphone to bring attention to social injustices here and abroad, he also challenges himself and his listeners to do something about it. For him this has meant going to jail for civil disobedience countless times, and going on hunger strikes in opposition to apartheid in South Africa, genocide and modern-day slavery in Sudan.

Madison has been relentless in his efforts to protect those who suffer at the hands of powerful interests. He led demonstrations and arrests in front of the Sudanese Embassy for 90 straight days to end the genocide in Darfur. His efforts led first to the House and Senate, and later the Bush administration declaring genocide was taking place in Darfur. Madison followed this up with a campaign to divest $93 billion in Sudan, through state pension funds. To date, Illinois, New Jersey and California have divested from Sudan.

Madison has traveled three times to the war zones in southern Sudan where he participated in the freeing of more than 7,000 slaves and delivering survival kits to refugees. He organized a “Sudan Campaign” to end slavery and raised thousands of dollars to free slaves, at a cost of $35 per slave. He participated in the victorious movement opposing the deportation of 15,000 Liberians from the United States in 2001.

Even the legendary Motown group The Four Tops have been the beneficiary of Madison’s activism. After 40 years in the music industry, The Four Tops had not received a star on Hollywood’s Walk of Fame. So Madison initiated a yearlong successful campaign urging listeners to send letters to the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce urging them to honor the group. In 1996, the campaign concluded with The Four Tops being awarded a star on the Walk of Fame. The group honored Madison at the Wolf Trap Arena in Washington, D.C. with a replica of the Hollywood Walk of Fame Star as officially crowning Madison, “The Fifth Top”.

Awards and Recognition:

He and his wife Sharon have been married for more than 30 years and live in Washington, D.C.