Joe Madison

Joseph Madison (June 16, 1949 – January 31, 2024) was an American Talk radio host and activist heard on the SiriusXM show Urban View. He advocated on voting rights, genocide, anti-lynching and other issues, seeking to mobilize his listeners. He served on the National Board of Directors of the NAACP. He was also known as "The Black Eagle". He was a member of the National Radio Hall of Fame.

Early life and education Madison was a native of Dayton, Ohio and graduated from Roosevelt High School in 1967. He graduated from Washington University in St. Louis in 1971 with a degree in sociology, and also played football for their team. His alma mater also awarded him a WashU Arts & Sciences' Distinguished Alumni Award in 2017 and an Honorary Doctor of Laws degree in 2019.

Radio career Madison began his radio career in 1980 on the AM band at Detroit's WXYZ-AM radio station. Later he hosted at 96.5 WWDB-FM Philadelphia.

In 2013 Madison moved exclusively to SiriusXM to host mornings on their 'Urban View' channel. He was heard Mondays through Fridays from 6 am to 10 am on 'Urban View' channel 126, SiriusXM.

In June 2015 he broadcast live from Cuba. SiriusXM described the broadcast as the first such American radio broadcast from the island in more than 50 years.

Humanitarian work 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 also traveled to Haiti following the 2010 Haiti earthquake and assisted relief workers.

On February 25–27, 2015, he hosted a record breaking marathon when he talked for 52 hours on his SiriusXM talk show. The broadcast is officially registered with the Guinness World Records. The broadcast raised more than $250,000 for the National Museum of African American History and Culture.

Sudan 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. The demonstrations protested the Sudanese government's conduct in the civil war and the enslavement of people captured from southern Sudan. In 2004, he was arrested with former representative Walter Fauntroy outside the Sudanese Embassy in Washington, D.C.

Madison traveled to Sudan six times during the Second Sudanese Civil War to deliver survival kits to refugees. He talked about the enslaved in Sudan on his show and participated in the freeing of over 7,000 people held in slavery according to his biography. During the 2021–22 hunger strike, he was undergoing treatment for prostate cancer, a fact that he did not share with his listeners at the time. Research done for the show revealed that his great-grandfather was a white man from South Carolina who fought for the Confederates during the American Civil War; and his biological grandfather was included in the Tuskegee syphilis experiment.

Personal life

Madison lived in Washington, D.C., with his wife Sharon (Sherry) and was a father and grandfather. He died of prostate cancer at his home in Washington, D.C. on January 31, 2024, at the age of 74.