Joe Madison
Joe Madison
Joseph Edward Madison (June 16, 1949 – January 31, 2024), known professionally as **Joe Madison** and nicknamed **"The Black Eagle,"** was an American radio talk-show host and civil rights activist. He worked in radio in Detroit, Philadelphia, and Washington, D.C., before becoming a nationally syndicated host and later broadcasting exclusively on SiriusXM. He also held several positions with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), including executive director of its Detroit branch and national political director.
Madison used his radio programs to campaign on civil rights, voting rights, anti-lynching legislation, apartheid, and the war and slavery in Sudan. He also participated in protests, hunger strikes, fundraising campaigns, and overseas relief efforts. In 2015, he set a Guinness World Record by hosting a 52-hour continuous radio broadcast that raised more than $250,000 for the National Museum of African American History and Culture.
Madison was born in Dayton, Ohio, on June 16, 1949. He attended Washington University in St. Louis, where he majored in sociology, played football as an All-Conference running back, sang as a baritone soloist in the university choir, and worked as a disc jockey at the campus radio station. He graduated with a bachelor's degree in 1971 and was the first member of his family to graduate from college.
While in college, Madison became involved in the civil rights movement. After graduating, he worked in communications and urban affairs before joining the NAACP.
In 1974, at age 24, Madison became executive director of the NAACP's Detroit branch, making him the youngest person to hold the position. He subsequently served as the organization's national political director and was later elected to its national board of directors, on which he served from 1986 to 1999.
As an NAACP organizer, Madison worked on voter registration and political mobilization. He organized voter-registration marches and helped lead the "March for Dignity," a cross-country effort from Los Angeles to Baltimore that collected thousands of signatures in support of legislation opposing apartheid in South Africa. He also organized a boycott of businesses in Dearborn, Michigan, over a city law he regarded as discriminatory.
Madison later served as chairman of the NAACP Image Awards. In 1997, he received the chairman's award at the NAACP Image Awards.
Madison began his professional broadcasting career in 1980 at WXYZ in Detroit. He subsequently worked at WWDB in Philadelphia and at radio stations in Washington, D.C. He joined WWRC in Washington in 1988 and later worked for Radio One. He became a host and program director at WOL, where he remained until 2013.
Madison's WOL program was syndicated through the Radio One Talk Network and distributed through XM Satellite Radio. After leaving WOL in 2013, he continued his program exclusively on SiriusXM.
On SiriusXM Urban View, Madison hosted *Joe Madison The Black Eagle*, a weekday morning program that addressed politics, civil rights, race, and current affairs. Political figures and other public figures regularly appeared on the program. SiriusXM renewed his contract in 2022.
Madison was inducted into the National Radio Hall of Fame in 2019.
Madison combined his broadcasting career with direct humanitarian and relief activities.
Following Hurricane Katrina in 2005, he took his radio program on the road through the Gulf Coast to document conditions and draw attention to the needs of affected communities. He later traveled to Haiti following the 2010 Haiti earthquake and assisted relief workers.[1][2]
Madison also became involved in humanitarian efforts in Sudan. He traveled to the region during the Second Sudanese Civil War and participated in efforts to secure the release of people held in slavery. He also delivered survival supplies to refugees during several trips to the country. His work was associated with campaigns that raised money to facilitate the release of enslaved people in southern Sudan.[1]
Madison also used his radio program for fundraising. In February 2015, he hosted a 52-hour continuous broadcast on SiriusXM in an effort to set a world record and raise money for the National Museum of African American History and Culture. The broadcast raised more than $250,000.[2]
The broadcast set the Guinness World Record for the longest marathon hosting a radio talk show. Later that year, Madison broadcast live from Cuba, becoming the first American radio talk-show host to broadcast from the country in more than 50 years.[3][2][1]
Madison's political activism included voter-registration campaigns, opposition to apartheid, campaigns concerning Sudan, anti-lynching legislation, and voting rights. He also advocated for the Emmett Till Antilynching Act which became law in 2022.
During his NAACP career, he organized voter-registration efforts. One of the most notable mobilization efforts was the "March for Dignity" where hundreds of volunteers partook in a cross-country activation from Los Angeles to Baltimore. These marches garnered substantial success, where thousands of signatures were collected in support of an anti-apartheid bill in Congress.
He continued political activism after moving into broadcasting, frequently using his radio programs to promote legislation and mobilize listeners.[4][1]
In the 1990s and early 2000s, Madison campaigned against slavery and genocide in Sudan. He participated in demonstrations outside the Sudanese Embassy in Washington and was repeatedly arrested during acts of civil disobedience. In 2001, he was arrested with former congressman Walter Fauntroy and another activist after the group handcuffed themselves to the embassy to protest the Sudanese government's conduct in southern Sudan.
In 2001, Madison was arrested after he and other activists handcuffed themselves to the Sudanese Embassy in Washington, D.C., to protest the Sudanese government's conduct in the civil war and the enslavement of people captured from southern Sudan.[1][5]
Madison also used his radio program to raise awareness of the conflict and to encourage political action concerning Sudan. His activism included calls for sanctions and divestment from Sudan.
Beginning in 2018, Madison campaigned for federal legislation making lynching a federal crime. He repeatedly raised the issue on his SiriusXM program and pressed members of Congress to support the legislation.
After earlier attempts failed, Congress passed the Emmett Till Antilynching Act in March 2022. President Joe Biden signed the legislation into law on March 29, 2022. Madison's advocacy for the legislation was publicly acknowledged by congressional leaders, including then-Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi.
In November 2021, Madison began a hunger strike to pressure Congress to pass federal voting-rights legislation, including the Freedom to Vote Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act. He ended the strike after 73 days in January 2022 after the Senate failed to advance the legislation. During the strike, his weight fell substantially, and he later said that the experience caused significant weakness and insomnia.
Madison had previously used hunger strikes as a form of political protest. His earlier actions included fasting during activism related to apartheid and Sudan.
During the 2021–22 hunger strike, Madison was also undergoing treatment for prostate cancer, a fact that was not publicly known to his listeners at the time.
Madison was married to Sharon Madison for more than four decades. They had four children, five grandchildren, and a great-grandchild.
Madison had been diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2009. The disease later returned and had spread by the time of his 2021–22 hunger strike.
He died at his home in Washington, D.C., on January 31, 2024, at the age of 74.
Madison's career combined talk radio with organized political and civil rights activism. The NAACP credited him with decades of voter-mobilization work and described his radio career as an extension of his civil rights advocacy. His 52-hour radio marathon, Sudan activism, anti-lynching campaign, and 2021 voting-rights hunger strike were among the most prominent public campaigns associated with his career.
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