Candidate for
Council Member; City of Los Angeles; District 10

Madison was raised in the 10th District (Mid-city Los Angeles).

After graduating from Los Angeles High School (as student body president) he pursued higher education at Harvard College, University of Missouri, Union Theological Seminary and Claremont Graduate School. He holds a B.A. in Political Science and the Master of Divinity degree.

Madison returned to the 10th district in 1989 as pastor of the Congregational Church of Christian Fellowship.

In 1999 he ran for City Council, District 10. Madison, in his first political campaign ever, won 46% of the vote against three-term incumbent Nate Holden. He received the endorsements of four members of the City Council (Mark Ridley-Thomas, Jackie Goldberg, Rita Walters and Mike Feurer) the Los Angeles Times, KNX radio, La Opinion and the LA Weekly. The upcoming election is on March 4th of 2003 and will present a great opportunity for Madison to finish what he started by filling the seat being vacated by the incumbent due to term limits.

Madison was ordained at First A.M.E. Church in 1979 and served several A.M.E. churches around the country. During his ministry at the Congregational Church of Christian Fellowship of the United Church of Christ, here in Los Angeles, he established a dynamic ministry. He was active in education reform as a member of LEARN and he organized interracial dialogues after the '92 uprising and was a leader in the ecumenical community.

Recently he has been active in police reform (he was a member of the Rampart Independent Review Panel), and worked against secession (as a member of the Council of Religious Leaders working group on the moral and ethical dimensions of secession).

He has served on numerous of boards of directors including Southern Christian Leadership Conference/ Los Angeles, Commission for Racial Justice, Southern California Americans for Democratic Action, LEARN, and Camino Nuevo Charter (School) Academy. He continues his ministry as a consultant with the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice and as a member of the United Church of Christ Justice and Witness Ministries Board.

Madison Shockley has been writing political commentary as a freelance writer for the Los Angeles Times since 1998. Writing on a wide variety of subjects including race, religion, politics, education, reproductive choice and popular culture, Madison's powerful and insightful commentaries have been published in papers across the country. For a selection of his articles visit the archives at http://www.latimes.com.

Currently he is a Senior Associate at the Pacific Council on International Policy at USC.

He is married to Gayle Shockley and they are the parents of four children.