Change Agent
Newspaper editor, campaign manager, Community Advisor… Madison White is looking for ways to make things better
A couple of summers ago, I woke up to the notification that Madison White would be my roommate for my first-year starting out a Whittier College. Madison White. I immediately searched her name on Facebook and Instagram and found her profile featuring Madison smiling with a “Proud Slytherin” filter over it. I thought, “Okay, I can deal with a Harry Potter nerd.”
Scrolling further down her page, I discovered she was into politics. Cool, so am I. After we introduced ourselves, one of the first texts she sent me was, “I was so relieved when I realized you were a Democrat, too.” We soon found out we were enrolled in the same linked course that covered feminism and women in politics. We quickly bonded and I figured we would get along.
On move-in day, I anxiously walked into my room and filled my wall up with cliché quotes, pictures from home and had no sooner placed an Eifel Tower pillow on my bed than all 5’10'’ of Madison marched in the room wearing a “The Future is Female” t-shirt. She then arranged a framed U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights above her bed and placed her Notorious RBG [Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsber] gear on her desk. She was relatively quiet but unmistakably commanding.
When you first interact with Madison White, it can be intimidating. There is no way to avoid her boldness and confidence. She is tall, competitive, passionate and opinionated. “I have no issue walking into a room and taking charge,” she told me.
Her first couple of years at Whittier College bear that out. White helps run local political campaigns, leads the school newspaper, gets good grades and finds time for friends. She’s a badass with a big heart whose focus is on bettering the community.
“I read some of Ruther Bader Ginsburg dissents and thought they were amazing, and I have been looking up to her ever since.”
White has always been unapologetic about her passions. Her interest in politics and civics started early. In fifth grade, her class had a mock election. It was 2008, the year Barrack Obama was running against John McCain. Madison’s job was to get out the students for Obama. “I was lobbying hard to get votes for Barack Obama. Of course, he won in my class,” she says, smiling.
Picture 11-year-old Madison White persuading other students to vote for Obama and stuffing those votes into the ballot box. After the mock-election, she went home and told her mom about it. Her mom told her that she usually votes Republican because Republicans tend to have more money. White replied, “I don’t think you should be able to buy someone’s vote.”
Outspoken and certain of her values, even at a young age. “I’ve always been like this. I’ve just always really cared,” White explains. But she credits a high-school course on the history of the Supreme Court with sparking her interest in civics. “I realize how dorky this sounds, but I fell in love with the judicial process from that class.”
White says she became infatuated with the material during the class.“I read some of Ruther Bader Ginsburg dissents and thought they were amazing,” she says, “and I have been looking up to her ever since.”
Her passion for politics transpired into work when she was just17 years old and she started “cold emailing every party official, organization and campaign I could think of.” In typical fashion, White didn’t hide her enthusiasm during an interview with one of the congressional campaign offices she contacted and they ended up hiring her to run the campaign. For the last four months of her high school career, she ran a political campaign while preparing to graduate.
The connections she made led to other positions and other campaigns that she has participated in here and in Las Vegas. White has been involved in some sort of campaign, working long nights and odd hours, since I’ve known her. The work seems intense and full of sleepless nights and stress. But, she loves it. Not in the least because she has a competitive nature and explains that not many jobs in the real world are divided into wins and losses the way campaigns are.
It’s not all about winning, though. She loves connecting with the community. “Every race I have ever worked, I have come out knowing the community better and creating lifelong connections because of it,” she says. “Hearing people’s struggles is really disheartening and in the process of campaigning, you hear a lot of bad news about people hurting and suffering. Getting the opportunity to make their lives better by putting someone or some policy in place that will help them is the best feeling. There are not many jobs where you get to see immediate, tangible changes happen like that.”
She also enjoys the campaigns because it connects her to people who share her interests and passions. “I have met a lot of my best friends through the process of campaigning,” she explains.
“Getting the opportunity to make their lives better by putting someone or some policy in place that will help them is the best feeling.”
White is the current editor in chief of Whittier College’s venerable newspaper, The Quaker Campus. She says she has always loved writing and was the editor in chief of the year book in her high school. Looking for a way to improve her writing, she got involved with the Quaker Campus her freshman year and began as a copy editor, which requires reading pieces for clarity and grammar.
She quickly became the assistant to the news section because of her knowledge, experience, and passion for politics. After serving as the news editor for a year, she took a semester off to act as the field director and campaign manager for Lizette Escobedo’s city council campaign this past spring. At the end of her sophomore year, she decided to run for editor in chief of the QC. She got the position and has been leading the paper ever since.
White has looked to improve the paper’s production process and quality by moving deadlines to earlier in the week (the paper comes out on Thursdays) so as little as possible is coming in last minute. That also gives her and her top staff more time to spend on the quality of the stories. “All articles are line edited by myself or the managing editor. This helps move along the editing process because we get fewer pieces that need a lot of work on production night,” she says.
The new managing editor, Autumn Dixon, says that Madison is the reason she started working for the QC. “Working together brought us closer. It has been such a great experience, she knows how to get stuff done efficiently and still have fun,” says Dixon. “She and I have such a good working relationship that it sometimes hardly feels like we're at work.”
As if her plate weren’t full enough, White is also a Community Advisor in Wanberg Residence Hall. Looking for a way to offset the cost of living on campus, she applied for the position on a whim. When she was offered the job and placed in Wanberg, she got excited and accepted. While she loves having her own room, creating the floor programs each semester has been her favorite part. So far, she has hosted a planner event, movie night, and her upcoming event for her all-female floor is going to be discussing feminism, self-care, and ways to de-stress.
White is double majoring in Political Science and English and after graduating in December of 2019, she plans to go to law school. She also hopes to work the last 11 months or so for a campaign during the 2020 election. While she is undecided about the exact career path she will take, she is certain it will be something that can help people in need and improve the community.
White revealed a possible major step in this direction as we recently sat watching a Christmas movie in the lounge of Wanberg. She was on duty as the residence community advisor and as the movie played she nonchalantly let slip that she is running to be an assembly delegate for the Democratic Party. “It’s the first thing that I have ever run for and it will probably be the last,” she said laughing.
She is running for the 57th Assembly District on a slate with 11 other Democrats. If they win, their slate will meet with elected officials and participate in the endorsement process for other California Democrats. She is the youngest person on the slate and would be replacing Lizette Escobedo who asked Madison to be her alternate over the summer and Madison obliged, thinking that she would not be needed.
The election is January 12th in the City of Industry and she would love support and if people could vote for her. “I think it is important because when you have just two major political parties, it’s easy to feel like those parties are so big that they don’t really represent you. If we want better democratic candidates, we need to build the leadership pipeline and participate in the endorsement process,” she explains.
