'It was humiliating': Black candidate has cops called on her while canvassing in predominantly white neighborhood

Scott Olson/Getty Images

Protesters rally outside the Wisconsin State Capitol in 2011.

• A black candidate for Wisconsin's state assembly had the police called on her while she was canvassing with her mother and daughter in a predominantly white community in Madison.
• Sheila Stubbs, who went on to win the primary election a week later, was talking with voters and handing out campaign materials when police arrived to question her.
• "It was just so degrading," Stubbs said of being racially profiled. "It was humiliating. It was insulting."

Shelia Stubbs, a 46-year-old black candidate for the Wisconsin state assembly, was canvassing with her 71-year-old mother and 8-year-old daughter in a predominantly white neighborhood in Madison when a community member called the police to report her.

The man who called the cops reported his suspicion that the three were engaged in drug-related activity.

"THINKS THEY ARE WAITING FOR DRUGS AT THE LOCAL DRUG HOUSE - WOULD LIKE THEM MOVED ALONG," the notes from the 911 call read.

Stubbs, who has spent 12 years on the Dane County Board of Supervisors, was knocking on doors and handing her campaign materials out to neighborhood voters on the August evening when the police arrived to question her.

"It was just so degrading," Stubbs, who went on to win the primary election the following week, told the Cap Times of the incident. "It was humiliating. It was insulting ... I didn't do anything to make myself stand out. I felt like they thought I didn't belong there."

Stubbs declined to disclose in which neighborhood she was canvassing when the cops were called (the information was not revealed in the police report), but noted that it was a predominantly white community.

Stubbs does not face a Republican opponent in the general election and is set to become the first-ever black representative of Dane County in the state legislature. She described the experience of being racially profiled as one of the most difficult of her life.

"I've worked so hard. This is something I've always wanted," she said. "I wasn't going to allow someone to take that, but it puts a hole in your heart, and it takes so long to mend it."