Samba Baldeh has sights on becoming Wisconsin’s first African American of Gambian descent state assembly person. The software engineer is running in a state with a record of making electoral history.

In 1978, Vel Phillips made history as the first African-American in the nation elected statewide when Wisconsinites elected her as the Badger State’s Secretary of State. In 2013, Tammy Baldwin became the nation’s first LGBQT+ senator when she was elected to represent the Midwestern state in the United States Senate.

When Baldeh entered and won his first election in very progressive Madison, the state’s capitol and home of the University of Wisconsin, he defeated a four-time incumbent by a slim two percentage points for a seat on the city council. He won a seat at the decision making table after years of volunteering and advocating for grass roots issues aimed at correcting the injustices surrounding HIV, youth, male and general political involvement, and African-American and Continental African relations. When he decided to run for the council seat, he told Port Of Harlem. “I was not sure if was going to win, but I was sure I needed to run.”

The foreign-born contributor to American democracy has also focused on international issues. With now Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, he traveled to Columbia, South America on a peace mission to work with indigenous people and African-Columbians. In Gambia, he helped opened the Amnesty International office in Banjul.

His official name is Samba Baldeh. “Just like here, where sometimes people call William, Bill, In Gambia, the nickname for Samba is Batch,” he explained. His hometown, Choya, in Gambia’s Central River Region, is a relatively homogeneous community with only about 10 compounds and about 80 people.

His father mainly raised cattle, but died when he was about four-years-old. “I have no memory of my father and don’t have a photo of him,” he recalls. As a youngster, Baldeh was more interested in education than farming so, “I walked six miles to attend school,” he says. He came to the United States in 2000 to purse technology studies. Besides being an engineer, he runs a small business.
   

There have been cultural shocks for the former village man who once walked six miles – each way - to school. He spoke of flying into New York City for the first time and being awed by the bright lights and riding the massive public transportation system.

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When Baldeh entered and won his first election, he defeated a four-time incumbent. When he decided to run for the council seat, he told Port Of Harlem. “I was not sure if was going to win, but I was sure I needed to run.”

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Ironically, he is coming from a country that is still debating the recognition of LGBQT+ people, but he is now at the foot of a political apparatus that includes elected officials who identify as LGBQT+ including his mayor, United States representative, and the nation’s only lesbian United States senator.  

While growing up in Choya, he says there was no discussion on sexual diversity. While growing up, I never met “anyone who identified as gay or lesbian,” he added. The new American leader says he has always been tolerant, but “I have to come to understand where (various) people are coming from without me judging them.”   

The Wisconsin primary is August 11.

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