On April 1, 2025, Shaundel Washington-Spivey was elected Mayor of La Crosse. After earning 9,012 votes vs. his opponent Chris Kahlow’s 8,561, he was inaugurated on April 15 and became the city’s first Black, LGBTQ+ mayor. He is one of roughly 150 elected Black, LGBTQ+ officials in the United States, and one of only four active Black, LGBTQ+ mayors, according to the Victory Institute.

Washington-Spivey’s election represents a significant victory, considering the first Black, gay mayor in U.S. history was not elected until 2003 when Ron Oden was named mayor of Palm Springs, California.

Our Lives magazine spoke with Mayor Washington-Spivey about his historic political journey and his vision for a more inclusive and representative future for all of Wisconsin.

Where did your path begin?

I grew up in the Northlawn Apartments on Milwaukee’s North Side. After my parents divorced, I lived with my sister, brother, and mother in a single-parent household. I was a “different” kind of child, one who was angry, withdrawn, and quiet throughout elementary school.

In middle school, I got involved with Teens Who Care. They did a lot of community outreach about the risks of drugs and alcohol. They hosted all these leadership camps where you could connect with kids from other schools and have opportunities to collaborate, learn, and grow together.

Teens Who Care had an enormous impact on me. I became the president of Students Against Violence and Drugs, president of my senior class at Riverside University High School, got involved in multiple organizations, and kept finding myself in leadership positions that taught me how to build community with folks.

What brought you to La Crosse?

After graduating from high school in 2007, I became a first-generation college student.

I knew UW–La Crosse was a white school, but I had my reasons for choosing it. One of my high school mentors, who’d been my math TA, encouraged my passion for math and science. He recommended that I apply for Upward Bound, and he was the one who first brought me to the UW–La Crosse campus so I could have that experience. I was sold.

Eventually, I earned both my bachelor’s and master’s degrees from UW–La Crosse. I actually inspired his mother to return to school at Hines Community College, where she earned a dual associate’s degree. I’m proud of that.

Tell us about your journey of becoming you.

Growing up in the church, I felt a strong conflict between who I was versus who I was being told to be. That took a big emotional toll on me. I was just trying to navigate and understand who I was, and I wasn’t finding any great representations of Black, LGBTQ+ identities anywhere. Black, gay men experience this trifecta: Navigating the world around you, navigating a white world as a Black man, and then navigating white gay spaces as a Black gay man. It’s not easy.

Sometimes, we ignore how racist the LGBTQ+ community can be. We like to think discrimination and racism are not real things, but I’m hoping by now, we realize that they are.

Who were your champions and advocates?

I was fortunate to have a strong support system. My godmother, Barbara Mark Stanley, was a pastor. She played a significant role in my self-acceptance. I was really struggling to own my spiritual sense of self while still owning my earthly sense of self. She helped me understand that some of the messages at church were meant for me, while others were not, and gave me such a different insight on these things.

One of the first people I ever opened up to was my cousin, who was doing amazing work with Black youth. We later brought him to La Crosse to work with high school and college students. And, of course, my high school mentor was an incredible source of support even while I was attending college. He got me; he really got me.

How did you get involved in politics?

When I started college, I wanted to work in criminal justice, as a police officer, or as a forensic scientist. But I changed my major to political science, with a minor in criminal justice, because I wanted to do necessary and meaningful work.

It troubled me that I didn’t see a lot of people like me in positions of power: Higher education, local government, national politics. The City of Milwaukee was pretty diverse, but I didn’t see a lot of leaders who looked like me outside of Milwaukee.

I actively volunteered with Black Student Unity in La Crosse. One day, while we were hosting a youth day camp, I encountered a large number of local Black families. That was significant for me because I didn’t really know any other Black folks in La Crosse. The population was so small that it was very rarely seen, especially on campus.

I started engaging with more and more diverse folks and learning about the issues they were facing, which led to me ask a lot of questions: What can we do about these issues? What can be done when none of us are at the table? Why do the people in power only include us at certain times? And why were we only allowed to talk about “people of color issues” like diversity and inclusion? I actually started a nonprofit in La Crosse called Black Legal Collective Knowledge to rise above that very notion.

What inspired you to become mayor?

I’ve always been a community organizer. Everything that I’ve ever done has involved building, organizing, and leading communities. When it came to the campaign, I wanted to ensure it was community driven. My campaign team was very intentional in making sure I stayed true to that all the way to the end. We started by doing these community action roundtables to get the community involved in some of the platform decisions. Some were more successful than others, but I was able to connect with a lot of folks.

I remember visiting the Hmong Community Center, and a lady said to me, “When you get into office, don’t forget about us. Too often leaders come to us, and once they’re elected, they never come back.” I felt that, right. Because I felt the same way.

When I announced I was running, some folks broke down crying in front of me with excitement. And that meant a lot to me. I’m doing this because I’m passionate about leading change and making a difference in this community. And I felt like, with the relationships I’ve built, and the work that I’ve done, I could actually do it.

What was your immediate reaction to winning the election?

So, here’s the amazing thing about that: I didn’t have to call anyone. You want to know why? Because they were all in the room with me. Maybe you’ve seen those pictures in the La Crosse Tribune.

When I say my campaign was community driven, I mean literally. From the primary watch party to the actual election, I was surrounded by my people. My family came out from Milwaukee on election night: My mom, dad, grandmother, sister, brother, uncle, cousins, and also all the community folks I’ve connected with over the years. We were all in this room, waiting to hear the news, and it felt so amazing.

What would you say to encourage someone to pursue political office?

There are two things I would say to that: First, if not you, then who?

And the second one, we have to learn, specifically we from marginalized communities, how to unapologetically embrace our identities. We have to be who we want to be. We can no longer be afraid of a fight.

When I think of the journey, there were some nights where I doubted myself. Was I doing the right thing? Was I setting myself up for failure? And I had to tell myself, “No, you’re in this for a reason. You’re in here, you’re in this, and you have people behind you all the way.”

What stands between Black LGBTQ+ folks and their seats at the table?

There are a couple of things. One is that no one taught us how to navigate. You learn a little bit in high school about government, but nobody is really taught how to navigate government circles. That’s why I encourage people to seek out mentorship. Educate yourself on how to navigate these systems, so that we can also learn how to challenge and tear them down. Just because something has existed for a long time doesn’t mean it’s right. And if it’s a system that has historically existed only to keep people out, it’s kept people out for a reason, and we need to be able to challenge those reasons.

What do you say to youth who don’t feel safe, valued, or heard by the government?

Speak up. Speak out. Your voice is more powerful than you know. There’s a quote that I like that says, “Speak even if your voice shakes.”

That’s what I’d say to the youth. To the adults, I would say shame on us for not allowing youth to be seen. We need to do the work to make sure they’re seen.

How has history inspired your work?

Well, you don’t know who you are unless you know where you came from. I stand behind that quote because I think it’s extremely important to acknowledge our history. Our people matter. Our identities matter. And oftentimes, as a Black, gay man, there have been moments where I felt I was inadequate, where I didn’t feel like I belonged at the table. And then I learned about folks like Bayard Rustin and James Baldwin. When I think about these individuals, and their impact on society, I know I belong here. And not only do I belong here, but I was already here.

We can’t continue to erase people’s identities for the sake of history. It’s time for us to really embrace it, and highlight who people were, so we can understand that our challenges are not new challenges. We have ancestors we can learn from.

I think about George Pogue a lot. I applaud the Enduring Families Project here in La Crosse, and the amazing work they’ve done to unveil hidden history. And I also think about George Erwin Taylor, the first Black man to run for president in 1904, who was from right here in La Crosse. How many people in La Crosse know his name or his story?

As the first Black, gay mayor of La Crosse, I acknowledge that I stand on the shoulders of giants who were here first. I just wish everyone else knew their stories, too.

What are the biggest barriers to LGBTQ+ equality in Wisconsin?

The lack of cohesiveness within the community itself. We need to come together and build coalitions that make us stronger. We need to figure out how to be more for our people. We can’t keep doing things the way we’ve always done them. The game has changed completely.

The second is visibility. If people can’t see us, they can never know us. We have to be visible. We have to be loud. Nobody’s going to do it for us. And we have to be at the table. We don’t need to settle for scraps. We need to be the ones pushing for change. We need to be the ones running for positions and fighting for our communities. We have to do these things for ourselves.

In closing, what are you most thankful for?

I’m truly fortunate and blessed to have a family who embraces all of me and shows up for me every chance they can to celebrate my accomplishments and support me through my downfalls. Not everyone can say that!