Black Women Provide Leadership to the Madison Common Council: Historic Leadership (Part 3 of 3)
Sabrina Madison (r) is the president of the Madison Common Council and Carmella Glenn is the vice-president.
By Jonathan Gramling
In 2018, Alder Samba Baldeh was elected president of the Madison Common Council and Alder Sheri Carter was elected vice-president of the council. It was the first time that two people of color occupied the top leadership positions of the council simultaneously.
In 2026, eight years later, history somewhat repeated itself when two Black women were elected to the positions, District 17 Alder Sabrina Madison as president and District 18 Alder Carmella Glenn. They are both east side representatives as well.
Madison, in particular, brings a lived experience perspective to many of the issues that the city of Madison is now facing. For instance, she has had to work hard to keep her brother from becoming homeless.
“No one admits that when people get out of prison, if they don’t have a home, where are they going,” Madison said. “They’re going to the local shelters across the country. Despite a person serving a sentence and doing their time, the Dept. of Correction across the country increase homelessness. Our WI Dept. of Corrections is not creating housing. They are not our number one housing developer. They are housing people in prison. But when we talk about corrections and someone being restored, housing is part of restoration. The only reason one of our brothers is stable now is not because prison set him up to be restored and do well. I may have given him some rules and taught him a lesson for the crime he had committed. My brother is stable because I made sure he had an apartment when he came home. And I talked to my friend who was the property manager for the building that we lived at. And I was very transparent with her. I said, ‘I’m going to rent this apartment. I would really love it if you would let me rent it for six months and hand over the lease to my brother so that he can build his rental history. She allowed me to do that. And he stayed there for another 1-2 years. Not only that, at the time that he was living in that apartment, we moved my mom to Madison and he moved in next door to her. It was because I was very intentional about it.”
And her brother was in need of help in a number of areas.
“I have a brother who lives in Madison who is struggling with his mental health,” Madison said. “He’s also homeless. He could very well stay with either one of us. But his mental health is a challenge for him to sort of stay with anyone of us. It’s not because we don’t want to, but because his mental health is unhealthy. He periodically gets arrested. And it is during those times when at least I know where to find him if I haven’t been able to find him at The Beacon, for example.
And just as important is the continuity of care.
“I did a tour of the Dane County Jail,” Madison said. “I learned about some of the resources that folks have access to when they are arrested. And speaking again about my brother, one of the things that he would have access to is the mental health aspect of things. The problem is when he gets out and is released that access is just cut off. It’s not there and so there isn’t something that keep a hold of him and helps him transition and helps him to manage his mental health. It’s like the train is broken. So serving on that Community Justice Council and wanting us to expand the Restorative Court for older folks is important to me, especially for folks like my brother. Right now, I believe there are only using it for folks who have retail theft. But I would like for them sooner rather than later expend it for folks who may have interactions around disorderly conduct because when you look at the numbers, disorderly conduct is the driver.”
Madison also has experience with people on both sides of law enforcement issues.
“Unfortunately, I have the experience of having an uncle who is never coming home from prison most likely and a nephew who just got sentenced to 30 years, a brother who has a couple of years left out of a 11-13-year sentence, and an uncle who died in prison,” Madison said. “On the other side, I have an aunt who retired from the police and her husband was an ex-police chief. So I get to see it all. I see more of the side of just being Black coupled with not having everything you need to be whole. And even when you do have everything that you need to be whole, you can still end up in a situation that is unfair and unjust. Even for the relatives who are no longer part of the police force, they have themselves questioned some things about policing. So I don’t necessarily see both sides. I just get to see the impact of it all.”
And Madison is concerned about police officer interactions with members of the Black community. [This interview was conducted before the Corey Ruiz shooting.]
“Black Madisonians have a right to move around both the city and any part of the county — any part of the country really — safely and freely without this heaviness on you,” Madison said. “‘Am I getting pulled over because I am Black? Am I really speeding? Is there something actually valid happening that would cause for me to pulled over?’ For example, I would tell people that despite me having both criminals and retired officers in my family, I still don’t want to get pulled over. I still don’t want the interaction. I have regular conversations with police captains all the time. Some of this is relationship building because whereas someone tried to paint me as anti-anything, I’m like, ‘You don’t even know my family makeup.’ I’m anti being killed. I don’t want to be killed. I don’t want my son killed. That’s what I am anti. I want Black folks to move around the city safely. And then if we are moving around the city in a way where police are engaging with us in a way that is illegal, that is wrong, that has to be checked.”
Again Madison’s concern arises from her own family’s experiences.
“When my son was still in high school, he was walking home down Fish Hatchery Road when we lived in Fitchburg,” Madison said. “And an officer was just trailing him. And my son called me and I had to come out of my house to watch my son walk down the street. I remember when he was in high school, he and a friend got arrested on the UW-Madison campus because they accidentally ended up on the wrong dorm floor looking for their friend. They were arrested for looking like someone who had broken into dorms. I was just like, ‘That’s stupid.’ I guess what I am saying is how I look at the issue, a lot of it is based on my own family and how I look at the criminal justice system.”
Madison has also had to adjust to how things are said and done in Madison. It’s unlike anything else that she experienced growing up in Milwaukee.
“I’m reading this author right now and he talks about how it’s not about whiteness as a color,” Madison said. “It’s a condition of whiteness that is the problem. And so that is very relevant here in Madison where because it’s a place that talks the Progressive-Liberal idea, it has a very difficult time confronting its challenges. Sometimes when you are trying to confront these challenges, some people also use that as a career-builder. It becomes not necessarily authentic in how they are attacking an issue. It becomes an opportunity to build ones own platform or career. Really, we just need people to be in it authentically and genuinely because I’ve lived here since 2007 and it’s never not felt like the Twilight Zone for me.”
In spite of it, Madison has tried to stay true to her authentic self.
“Madison is a place where you meet these people, you work together, you collaborate on different things, and you get the support potentially,” Madison said. “But even in that, I still have to grapple with I am going to say what I am going to say. I’m going to do what I want to do. I’ve never been the type of person who is going to mince my words in fear of losing support. And I am confident that I’ve lost support for some of the things that I said. I don’t really care though. I didn’t grow up here. So I am thankful I grew up in a city, in Milwaukee, where I got to see Black people be everything: professional sector and everything else. And I’m blessed and I’m thankful that I have had the opportunity to travel and see Black people running higher cities. In a city like Madison, I think the reason that I can do well here and have done well here is because I’ve never let go of the vision of not only what my life could be like here, but also other Black folks lives could be like here.”
Yet in spite of it all, Madison enjoys being an alder and has the chance to see the Public Market, the Innovation Center and Bartilon Shelter come to fruition, projects that she played a role in making them a reality.
“I’ll be honest with you,” Madison said. “I enjoy being alder. I enjoy being a leader. For most of my time here, I’ve served in leadership roles in some capacity. I’m not having a hard time being alder. What people have to ask themselves is, ‘Am I making it difficult for people to live here? Am I making it difficult to have actual progress?’ And sometimes, I’ve probably made it difficult for other people knowingly or unknowingly. If people can sort of get to a space where, ‘Do I really want what is best for Black Madisonians. Or am I more interested in what is best for me.’ I’ve worked on things that I’ve never gotten credit for or no one ever said thank you. But it made someone else’s life better here. It changed a policy for the long term. I try to share a lot of what I do. But other times, I just do it because it needs to be done. Madison can be a place where folks wear a mask. But at the end of the day, I never thought that I am going to be the one nor should I be expected to solve all of Madison’s issues. We should never think about anyone like that. But unfortunately you do have local white Progressives who see a Black person or a person of color in leadership and task then with solving it all despite their being a part of the problem.”
Common Council President Sabrina Madison will continue to pay the price to moving important issues that the city of Madison is facing forward. Somebody has to pay the price and Madison is willing to do so if the price is right in terms of what gets done..
