India Walton grew up in Buffalo, New York, a starkly segregated city, where 85 percent of the city's Black residents live on the East Side. She started a family there at 14 and then a career as a nurse in her 20s. In her 30s, she left a violent marriage, became a neighborhood organizer, and decided to run for mayor.
In June 2021, India shocked the political establishment and won the Democratic primary, beating the four-term incumbent mayor. She was shocked, too, and the jubilant video of her calling her mom that night went viral. But, the mayor did not concede, and he won the general election after he launched a write-in campaign.
Five months after India lost that election, a gunman shot up a grocery store on Buffalo's East Side and killed 10 people in a racially motivated attack.
In this episode, we talk about when government helped India and let her down, and how growing up poor and Black in Buffalo fueled her drive to change systems – in healthcare, education and housing politics.
Want to hear more of DSM's past episodes with political leaders and public officials? Listen to Anna chat with Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, current Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm, and way back, in one of the show’s very first episodes, former Wyoming Senator Al Simpson.
Conversations with My Dead Mother
I Wanted To Be A 'Good Girl'
Inside John Waters' Home (But Not Inside His Colon)
How Clothes Help Us Find Our People and Ourselves
Lucinda Williams Says Whatever the Hell She Wants
Big Freedia Bounces Back
Finding Meaning After My Husband's Public Death
Knock Knock, Who's There? Bob the Drag Queen
What's Going On With Student Loans?
"This Isn't Just About Abortion": What the End of Roe Means to You
Bottled Up: Your Stories About Alcohol
The Highs and Lows of Being a Starbucks Union Organizer
“No Call Goes Unanswered”: A Lifeline in Wyoming
The Very Hot Marriage of Niecy Nash and Jessica Betts
Cut Loose: Your Stories of Breaking Up
'I'm Done Kissing Your Butt': From Manager to Labor Activist
How Harvey Fierstein's Bad Sex Led to Good Art
What Our Teachers Are Carrying
Maria Hinojosa on Partying, Partnership, and Her New Pulitzer
Create your
podcast in
minutes
It is Free
The Modern West
Stuff You Should Know
On Being with Krista Tippett
TED Radio Hour
Planet Money
The Dinner Party Download