| bathroom. In order for us to show that we wouldn't settle with these poor conditions, I encouraged some of my classmates to go under the stalls and lock the doors. We devised a plan to shut that system down so we could have access to those bathrooms. It worked and I could certainly see how a teacher would think that was mischievous. But for me at the time, I really felt we should be able to go to the same bathrooms as everyone else." Woods hails from the south side of Chicago, not a south suburb, but the inner city of Chicago. And while the south side of Chicago can be a rough place to live, she grew up under the protective eye of her mother and in Trinity United Church of Christ, the same church that U.S. Senator Barack Obama attends. Trinity United is an activist church and the lessons it offered were not lost on Woods. "Everything that I learned about being politically aware and about community activism I learned at my church," Woods reflected. "My pastor would call the mayor out. He stands for integrity the way you would expect any leader to stand. He invites the congregation to be active and not to be passive. Anytime you use your position in the way that my pastor has used his position to be active and invite activism into the pulpit is very dynamic. I think I am a result of that because you socialize with your family and church." Education has always been important in Woods' family. Her mother wasn't satisfied with the schools in her neighborhood and so, she enrolled Woods in Kenwood Academy High School in the Hyde Park neighborhood and the backyard of the prestigious University of Chicago. By a lucky twist of fate, Woods' neighborhood school only went up to the sixth grade and so Woods' mother enrolled her into a special seventh grade component of the high school. And it expanded her world beyond Chicago's south side. "I went everywhere when I was in high school," Woods recalled. "I had a mom who pushed my involvement and didn't let me sit around the house at all. She made a hard decision. The sacrifice I made was that I didn't spend a lot of time in my neighborhood. I was removed in a lot of ways from my neighborhood. My friends and I went in two separate directions and I needed to stay in the direction of the friends who kept me positive." Woods also cut her political activist teeth in seventh grade when Carol Moseley-Braun ran for the U.S. Senate. "I was folding and stuffing envelopes," Woods said. "But at the time, I really felt what I was doing was a part of a larger picture. She is the inspiration for me, not just because she is the first Black woman to be elected to the U.S. Senate from Illinois, but because I understand how hard any marginalized group or who has been historically disenfranchised has to work. She embodied a work ethic that most people would be lucky to emulate. It isn't always easy for women to get in the door in politics. And because she is Black, it's not easy to get in the door. She is a role model for me. I still have the generic thank you card that I'm sure she sent to all of the volunteers. But I felt like she appreciated my work. And I felt the work that I did really meant something. From there, I volunteered for an aldermanic campaign in my neighborhood. I helped with lit drops. Again, I felt like I was a part of something larger. I have a growing appreciation for community organizing and knowing that to be the best representative; you have to work from the interests of the community." Woods excelled at Kenwood Academy and developed an interest in creative writing and urban spoken word. "I was in an organization Young Chicago Authors, which was the premier writing organization in the city of Chicago that really engages students in creative writing," Woods said. "That's when I started to become aware of my afro-femininity, when I began to understand who I am as a woman and as a Black woman in the city as a young person. I was really coping with these identity issues when I was in high school through a literary perspective. I was unfolding these layers of identity when you come of age and all of these things that young girls have to deal with. I hosted poetry slams in high school. I started a poetry club where we would have these poetry slams once per month. We had jazz bands and graffiti writers and hip hop. We were really bringing all of these elements together for young people to be in a space where it is positive. That was my fusion between art and activism. I still operate from that culture." Through her school, Woods also became a member of the Posse program that would eventually land Woods at the University of Wisconsin in 2003 with 10 other members of her cohort. Ten of them are still at the UW-Madison in their senior year. Woods has continued her activism at the UW. She was president of the Black Student Union her sophomore year and worked through the Multicultural Student Coalition to keep the university accountable to its Plan 2008, its roadmap to make the student body more diverse on the Madison campus. She also worked with the coalition that lobbied the state legislature to stop the dramatic increases in student tuition, even though she was on a full tuition scholarship at the UW. Woods also continued to write. "In my sophomore year, I organized a slam," Woods said. "We brought in artists from all over. It was a big event with over 1,200 people participating over a three-day period at different venues in the city and on campus. I'm not involved in that scene now because I've changed my area of focus. I still write, but I don't perform as much as I used to. But I will always write." It is Woods' sensitivity as a writer and her activism that have led Woods to seek to represent the eighth district, a district that made up primarily of UW students. "My writing makes me more aware of what my constituency needs," Woods reflected. "Everything I do, I try to recognize that it isn't about me. As a policy maker, you should be seeking truth. Of course, there is a negative connotation with politics and politicians. That's not something we can ignore. When I tell people this is something I'm into, especially friends from the writing or artistic community, for some they say they can see it because they believe politics should operate with integrity. But there are other people who have lost hope with the political process and feel the process has not protected them and has let them down. Those are very legitimate feelings and they wonder why I am doing this. They tell me to just make sure that I don't sell out. I don' think that will be a problem with me." Woods will also be sensitive to the people who haven't had a voice on the common council. "Let people speak for themselves," Woods said. "You don't want a part of any paternalistic, patriarchic culture that always thinks it can speak for somebody else and think that they know their best interest. If you want to empower someone, then you need to relinquish power. Allowing someone to speak for themselves relinquishes power. Sometimes I wonder if people understand the relationship between giving up your own power and empowering someone else who needs to be involved in that process and who can't be a part of that process." While Woods would become the first African American woman to sit on the council, she isn't preoccupied with the thought. And just as Carol Moseley-Braun blazed the trail for others, Woods hopes her candidacy will open the door to political participation for others. It's all about other people and not about her. "It's unfortunate that I would be the first just because I wish someone would have had the opportunity to do it before me," Woods said. "But I take this opportunity with pride and I understand the responsibilities that I have. I would be blessed if someone felt as if I was model for them in the same way Moseley-Braun has been a model for me." Woods can be contacted at votelaurenwoods@gmail.com. |
 |
| Lauren Woods challenges for District 8 alderperson Knocking on the Council's door By Jonathan Gramling |
| Lauren Woods, candidate to represent Madison's eighth aldermanic district on Madison's Common Council, and I sit talking in the basement of the City-County Building and only someone with a vision impairment wouldn't notice her striking beauty. Yet, it is important to quickly move beyond superficial appearances to appreciate the "natural born" leadership qualities that Woods has to offer. One could say that her leadership qualities broke through at an early age. "I've been a student activist since kindergarten," Woods said. "The kindergarteners had their own bathroom. At the time, I was really passionate about this, as passionate as I could be at five years old. I felt the kindergarteners should have access to the same bathrooms that the first and second graders had. Those bathrooms were a little more lavish. You didn't have to wait in their bathrooms. You weren't placed in the uncomfortable position of not reaching your goal of going to the |
 |