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Standing on stage in a Philadelphia comedy club, the woman wearing a hijab talks candidly about the condition that causes patches of her skin to lose pigment.

“Both of my parents are African-American. I identify as biracial,’’ she deadpans. “About 10 years ago, my body decided it wanted some of that white privilege. I’ve come to terms with this. Eventually I’ll be all white, and I’ll be doing great.”

The audience at the Tattooed Mom howls.

A few days earlier, that same woman stood a few feet from Vice President Kamala Harris, who was giving a speech to admirers at a holiday party in her Washington home.

Suddenly, after Harris spoke with reverence about the “joyful time of year,’’ the woman unfurled a black cloth banner proclaiming “CEASEFIRE.”

“Did you know that in Bethlehem, baby Jesus is under rubble?’’ the woman shouted. “Why won’t you call for a ceasefire?”

Harris calmly told the woman she “appreciates that you want to be heard, but right now I’m speaking.”

This crowd hooted as the protester was led out of the room.

Welcome to the world of Delaware state Rep. Madinah Wilson-Anton, the only Muslim ever elected to the General Assembly.

“Did you know that in Bethlehem baby Jesus is under rubble? Why won’t you call for a ceasefire!”

Delaware State Rep. Madinah Wilson-Anton interrupts VP Kamala Harris during a holiday soiree after Harris said the holidays “should be a joyful time of year.” pic.twitter.com/VRYz7k0qQM

— BreakThrough News (@BTnewsroom) December 12, 2023

Scholarly, effervescent and sometimes just silly, the 31-year-old with a magnetic smile is part of the Working Families Party, the progressive faction of Delaware’s dominant Democratic Party. She has represented the Bear-Newark area in the state House since 2020 and was elected without opposition in November to a third two-year term.

Not only is Wilson-Anton the sole member of the Muslim faith and the second youngest of 62 state legislators, she’s also in the minority as one of 26 women (42%), one of 16 Black members (26%) and one of 12 Black women (19%).

Wilson-Anton stands out in Dover, however, for her fearlessness and tenacity in taking on unpopular causes. Those traits are rarities in a legislature whose members are often reticent to speak on controversial matters, especially those involving high-ranking officials in their own political party.

For example, this summer Wilson-Anton was one of just a few Democrats to call on the party’s endorsed gubernatorial candidate, Lt. Gov. Bethany Hall-Long, to withdraw from the race. She did so after a state report, made barely a month before the Sept. 10 primary election, concluded Hall-Long and her husband had repeatedly broken campaign finance laws in recent years.

“This is not the behavior of someone who is fit to run for office, let alone fit to lead our state as governor,” Wilson-Anton told WHYY News. Hall-Long stayed in the race but finished a distant second to New Castle County Executive Matt Meyer in a three-way race.

When state Auditor Kathy McGuiness was indicted in 2021 for abuse of her statewide office, Wilson-Anton was one of just two lawmakers who signed a letter calling on her colleagues to file and pass a resolution asking Gov. John Carney to remove his fellow Democrat from office.

After McGuiness was convicted in 2022, Wilson-Anton said the auditor was “not fit to serve in a position that requires this level of public trust” and called it “a disgrace” that McGuiness remained in office pending trial. Months later, McGuiness resigned as Carney was poised to oust her.

‘My country should not be supporting the genocide’

While popular with voters in her racially diverse district, Wilson-Anton has angered fellow Democrats and Republicans alike for her strident actions.

She marched in several protests against the Israeli bombardments that have killed tens of thousands of Gazan civilians since the Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attack by the Islamic militant group Hamas that killed more than 1,200 people, including 46 Americans. Almost all of Gaza’s 2.1 million residents are Muslim.

The theatrical stunt at the vice president’s party in Washington came just days after Wilson-Anton completed a five-day hunger strike in front of the White House.

Several Democratic colleagues, who had pledged to “Stand with Israel” in the overseas conflict, threatened her with an ethics investigation after she upstaged Harris. No such action was taken, however.

Wilson-Anton wasn’t done. Her quest next led her to the House floor, where on the first day of the legislative session in January, she introduced a resolution calling for hometown President Joe Biden and Delaware’s congressional delegation to work toward a permanent ceasefire to end the “genocide” in Gaza. Rep. Jeff Spiegelman, who is Jewish, presented a vehement criticism of the bill on the House floor, and Wilson-Anton, lacking support to pass it, withdrew the bill.

She remained undeterred and in April tweeted that “Joe Biden is a war criminal” for his military support of Israel in their war against Hamas — an especially caustic remark directed at  someone she once referred to as one of her “idols.”

Wilson-Anton later introduced a toned-down resolution seeking a permanent ceasefire in Gaza, but the bill didn’t contain the word “genocide’’ and never mentioned the president. She pushed the measure through the House but it lacked adequate support to gain introduction in the Senate.

The lawmaker defended her protests against Israel’s actions in several interviews with WHYY News for this story.

“A terrorist group attacking civilians should not be the premise for a nation-state to orchestrate a  genocide,’’ she explained. “And my country where I pay taxes and where I’m a citizen should not be supporting the genocide, and shouldn’t be supporting weapons to a military that’s chosen not to be tactical.”

The Jewish Federation of Delaware has stood as a fierce critic of Wilson-Anton’s positions, issuing a statement last December that lambasted her “disgusting” display for interrupting Harris’s party and disparaging President Biden.

“Through the media I’ve read some of her comments, some of her posts on social media, and they have not been friendly to the Jewish community,’’ federation president Seth Katzen told WHYY News. “Some of her perspectives are very one-sided and inciteful.”

Asked this month if he supports a ceasefire now, 14 months into the war, Katzen said, “I’m very in tune with the daily happenings overseas and in Israel. And in Gaza, there’s still a hostage crisis. There’s still [about 100] hostages. There’s still American-Israeli hostages. If they were returned there would be no war. And that’s what we want — their safe return.”

Beyond negative reactions from the federation and legislative colleagues to her positions on Gaza, social media commentary about her posts has sometimes been brutal.

She’s received messages filled with bomb emojis, been encouraged to wear a suicide belt, and told to “go pick cotton” in the South.

Yet Wilson-Anton takes the venom directed at her in stride.

“I ruffle feathers doing that, taking that approach,’’ she said. “But I feel that’s kind of my lot in life, the kind of person that I am. I am not going to be the person that sits at the table and we all just talk in circles and go around and around and nothing gets resolved. I want to lead with action items and sometimes that offends people.”

‘We need to be more blunt about what our values are’

While Wilson-Anton’s audacious approach to politics has engendered criticism and controversy, it’s also given her a global reach.

Her advocacy for the people of Gaza, as well as her two-year-old comedic career, struggle with the autoimmune disorder vitiligo and life as a state legislator was recently chronicled in a 25-minute film, “Stand up for Madinah: The U.S. Politician Pushing for Peace in Gaza.”

The show, directed by Medford, N.J., resident Zainab Sultan, debuted in November on the Al Jazeera English documentary series “Witness.”

Sultan said she was drawn to Wilson-Anton after seeing her in action at Harris’s party. Clips of the outburst went viral on social media, and to date has garnered 86,000 views on YouTube alone.

“She was actively taking action and almost working as an organizer, calling attention to what was happening in Gaza and demanding a ceasefire, and yet at the same time she belonged to the party that was endorsing it,” Sultan said. “And to me that dichotomy, that opposition, was just very interesting as a filmmaker.”

Suffice it to say that in four short years in elective office, Wilson-Anton has already made her mark in and outside of Delaware as one of the state’s most unique and polarizing political figures in recent history.

“Madinah is a very complex individual,’’ said conservative former Republican Rep. Ruth Briggs King, who described her onetime colleague across the House aisle as intellectual, inquisitive and “very passionate.”

Briggs King acknowledged that Wilson-Anton’s determination and strength as an advocate for causes she believes in has engendered resentment and hostility in her opponents.

Briggs King emphasized, however, that she’s always found Wilson-Anton welcoming and friendly, and she was happy to accept the Democrat’s invitation to attend Ramadan events to learn more about Islam. While they sometimes disagreed, the conversations were never disagreeable.

Wilson-Anton represents “maybe a new way of doing things or looking at how things get done, which I just looked at as a generational shift,” Briggs King said.

Wilson-Anton says she has never sought “to climb the ladder and curry favor in my party.”  Instead, she approaches issues with an analytical eye and then does what she deems necessary to address them publicly. She despises the “go along to get along’’ attitude of many lawmakers, saying it often delays substantive change.

“I just feel like we need to be more blunt about what our values are and what our communities want and so I try to model that,’’ Wilson-Anton said. “I don’t know if it’s successful or not. That depends on how you measure success. But I think I have been successful in encouraging conversations that often didn’t happen before.”

“It can be really isolating to be the person that does that all the time. But I think it’s really important that there’s always at least one person in a body that’s willing to kind of push the envelope and force conversations that other members just might not be comfortable sparking on their own. I’m sure I could have been more diplomatic in plenty of different situations, but I think part of what plagues Delaware politics is too much diplomacy.”

‘My dream job was working at the United Nations’

Growing up as the second oldest of six daughters in a comfortable suburban household in the district she now represents, Wilson-Anton envisioned a career traveling the world as an interpreter.

Her father was a DuPont Co. technician and her mother a teacher. Wilson-Anton experienced a variety of educational modes. She was first home-schooled by her mother with other Muslim children, then attended a private Islamic elementary school and a public middle school, then won a coveted spot at Charter School of Wilmington, the state’s highest-ranked public school.

At the University of Delaware, she initially had a triple major in languages — Chinese, French and Spanish.

“By like my second semester, I realized [being an interpreter] wasn’t a realistic goal because I wasn’t a native speaker of anything other than English,’’ she said, so she switched to international relations and Asian studies. “My dream job at that time was working at the United Nations” on a diplomat’s staff or perhaps in the U.S. Foreign Service.

She was picked for UD’s Legislative Fellows Program, conducting research for House Democrats, and earned her bachelor’s degree in 2016.

She considered applying for a White House Fellowship that year, but when Republican Donald Trump won the presidential election, she scrapped the idea. Trump, after all, had called for a “total and complete” ban on Muslims entering the United States.

Instead, she parlayed her fellowship into a job working with House Democrats, and enrolled at UD for a master’s degree at what soon became the Joseph R. Biden School of Public Policy and Administration.

While in grad school, she was hired by UD’s Biden Institute think tank, She saw Biden himself there a few times, and one day encountered the former U.S. senator and vice president in the office kitchen.

“He’s like looking around, trying to figure out where stuff is,’’ she recalled. “I was like, ‘You know I can make your coffee’ or ‘You don’t have to worry about this kind of stuff,’ and he was like, ‘No, no. I’m good. I got it.’ He handled himself like he just was a normal person.”

Knocking off 11-term fellow Democrat in 2020 race

The potential career Wilson-Anton envisioned overseas was about to take a U-turn.

In 2019, she was having lunch with former legislative co-workers who said her former boss, Rep. John Viola, would probably not seek re-election to a 12th term in 2020.

“They said, ‘You live in his district, you grew up there. You spent time on the phone with people who live there. You could already run through all the issues. Why don’t you run?’” she recalled.

The conversation rekindled fond memories of helping Viola’s constituents with problems such as avoiding having their electricity turned off because of an overdue bill.

“I recognize how much of an impact a legislator can have,’’ Wilson-Anton said.

When she worked in Dover previously, she had thought “being the legislator was too stressful and [involved] too many people yelling at you and being mad and never satisfied. But at that point, I guess I was removed enough that I was optimistic about the role and felt like I could actually make a difference. And I wouldn’t have as steep of a learning curve.”

She approached Viola for his endorsement but instead learned he was running again. “I remember being kind of pissed off that he was changing up,’’ she recalled.

In full recognition that it would be “pretty taboo” to primary the incumbent Democrat, she entered the race anyway.

Wilson-Anton estimated she and volunteers in her “grassroots campaign’’ knocked on up to 3,000 doors by March 2020, but then COVID-19 hit and paralyzed the state, essentially halting her ground game. A third candidate also entered the race.

But in September’s primary election, she squeaked past Viola by 43 votes out of 2,990 cast, and rolled to victory against a GOP foe in November with 72% of the vote.

At age 26, she was not only the only Muslim ever in the General Assembly, but by far the youngest member and one of a small but growing number of Black and women members.

“Honestly, I was really excited,’’ she said of that heady time. “I guess I’m weird. I wasn’t really scared about being any of those things.”

She entered the Legislature in a year when there were more Black lawmakers than ever — 12 as opposed to just four after the 2016 election. “There was a lot of excitement and camaraderie” among the newcomers, she said.

As for being the only Muslim legislator, Wilson-Anton recalled being unfazed.

“I have had my experience with Islamophobia and racism and misogyny, but I mostly think about those when I get interviewed,” she said. “I can go back and think about scenarios, but I’ve been a Black Muslim my whole life, so it’s not even in the top 20 or top 50 memories for me.”

Strong voice for constituents and Muslim community

Rep. Wilson-Anton has supported progressive causes such as gun control, reducing economic and educational inequalities, marijuana legalization, and racial justice, all while tending to the day-to-day duties in her district.

Her legislative Facebook page displays dozens of photos with volunteer firefighters, union workers, educators and other constituents, and notices about issues, meetings and events.

In 2022, she sponsored a bill that extended landlord-tenant protections to homeowners who live in camper trailers on rented land, but under state law, their residences did not qualify as manufactured homes. The bill passed both Democrat-controlled chambers along partisan lines.

“I believe one of the most important things for a legislator to do is to keep people from falling into the cracks, and this legislation was exactly that,’’ she said. “There were families that were being taken advantage of. Because of just a couple words in the state code, they weren’t being protected.”

She also sponsored a successful bill in 2023 requiring Delaware’s three counties to reassess all property values every five years.

All counties are now reassessing properties but none had done one for at least 35 years. That changed after a 2020 court ruling that the current system was unconstitutional and directed the counties to rectify the situation.

The ruling came after a lawsuit by the ACLU and NAACP, joined by the city of Wilmington, charged that the current school funding system deprives poor, disabled and non-English speaking students of an adequate education.

Wilson-Anton said she pushed the measure to provide tax parity and fair school funding.

“Right now, people are paying too much, some too little, and others the correct amount,” she said after it passed the House. “This legislation was drafted to ensure we don’t go another three decades with outdated property values that result in inequitable county and school funding streams.”

She’s also taken up causes for Delaware’s Muslim community.

In her first year in office, she proposed a law that passed overwhelmingly that required K-12 schools to excuse a student’s absence for observance of a religious holiday such as Eid al-Fitr, which marks the end of the monthlong dawn-to-dusk fasting of Ramadan.

The law also requires schools to discourage teachers from scheduling tests and presentations on such days, and allows students who miss a grading event to make up their assignments.

She’s also trying to get lawmakers to approve adding Eid al-Fitr as an official state holiday, and says she won’t shy away from bringing Muslim issues to the floor.

“I think it’s really important for members of underrepresented groups not to shy away from conversations like this,’’ Wilson-Anton said. “I’m here to do the other stuff but also there to represent a community that’s never had a seat at the table.”

Appalled by Hamas, and then by Israel

On Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas terrorists crossed into Israel and slaughtered more than 1,200 men, women and children and took about 250 hostages, Wilson-Anton said she was as appalled as anyone.

Two days later, though, when then-House Speaker Valerie Longhurst invited lawmakers to a “We Stand With Israel” event at the Jewish Community Center near Wilmington, Wilson-Anton emailed lawmakers that she would not attend.

“I grieve the loss of life in the region, on both sides. But I refuse to “Stand with Israel” as if the conditions of poverty, injury and loss of life Palestinians live with every day is somehow disconnected from the state of Israel and its policies,’’ Wilson-Anton wrote.

“I stand with the people of Palestine who for too long have been ignored, demonized, dehumanized, and refused the dignity and humanity ALL humans deserve. I stand with the Israeli citizens who have called out the inhumanity of the apartheid state and have called for full rights for all citizens of Israel and Palestine.”

The state Republican Party responded by denouncing Wilson-Anton’s “antisemitic statement” on its Facebook page.

The post asked Delaware Democrats, who hold all nine statewide elective offices and control the House and Senate: “Are you okay with this statement? Do you stand with Hamas as well? Do you stand with a sworn enemy?”

Democrats in the legislature did not respond publicly, a stance typical of the party’s approach to Wilson-Anton. For example, state Democratic Party executive director Travis Williams would not agree to an interview about the fellow Democrat who just won an unopposed third term.

Within two weeks of the Hamas attacks, protests against Israel’s relentless retaliatory attacks erupted worldwide. Wilson-Anton joined protests on the road leading to Biden’s home near Wilmington, and in Philadelphia.

And as the weeks and months went on, and the bombs kept falling on Gaza, one of the world’s most densely populated areas, Wilson-Anton said she became just as appalled with Israel’s behavior.

“I wasn’t interested in playing it safe. I wanted to do what I thought was right and where my values aligned,’’ she said. “I was at my wit’s end trying to figure out what else I could do. In my heart, I felt like I had a responsibility to do something.”

Last December, she joined a five-day hunger strike outside the White House. She reached out to Biden and his family and aides to try to discuss her opposition to U.S. support of Israel’s bombardment, but received no response.

‘I was not interested in a holly jolly Christmas’

Wilson-Anton had a bigger move up her sleeve, however, courtesy of an invitation to Vice President Harris’s holiday party on Dec. 11.

“Why are they inviting me? I’ve been very vocal about my stance,” she recalled thinking. “I’m not happy with the administration [but] I’m on the list. I don’t even celebrate Christmas or Hanukkah. Like, I don’t even have a holiday right now to celebrate.”

“I just felt like it was meant to be. It was kind of cosmic because they don’t want me to be at this party. But I’m going to go.”

To this day, she’s amazed no one flagged her as someone not to invite.

“I was posting on social media every day, ‘Genocide Joe’ this, ‘Genocide Joe’ that. ‘Killer Kamala’ this, ‘Killer Kamala’ that,’’ she said. “Any quick look at anything I posted, you would have known that I was not interested in a holly jolly Christmas.”

After conferring with people from other protest groups, Wilson-Anton concluded she would not get a chance to speak one-on-one with Harris and decided, “OK, I am gonna disrupt.”

So there she was, at a party with a few hundred Democrats, including several legislators from Delaware. She had smuggled in the “CEASEFIRE” banner by disguising it as a shawl, deliberately concealing the inflammatory word. Wilson-Anton also arranged for her guest to video her performance, and then post it on social media.

She mingled with other giddy partygoers, and even stood in the photo line, thinking she might unveil the banner while Harris posed with her. Then, a staff member chatting with her guest confided that Harris was about to speak, so Wilson-Anton dashed back into the main room and stood a few feet from the vice president’s podium.

Wilson-Anton waited for a pause in the short speech, then struck.

The actual act was a blur, Wilson-Anton said, recalling she felt “underwater” for the few seconds it lasted.

Once she was escorted out, Wilson-Anton was surprised when some Harris staff members seemed sympathetic and asked her what message she wanted to convey to the vice president. One took her card.

“She said, ‘It’s really important that we hear from diverse voices’ or something like that,’’ Wilson-Anton recalled. That remark made her wonder, “Did you invite me on purpose?”

‘Great at being able to bring concerns to forefront’

No one from the White House ever reached back out to Wilson-Anton, but her Democratic colleagues in the House did send her a letter threatening her with an ethics probe “if I did something like that again,’’ she said.

“They accused me of disorderly conduct and abuse of office” because at the outset of her rant to Harris, Wilson had announced she was a Delaware lawmaker. “It’s kind of funny that that would be considered abuse of office, but yeah, that was the blowback I got from my colleagues.“

Confidantes later told her, “Some people were worried that if they didn’t distance themselves from me, they wouldn’t get invited to future events” held by the Biden administration. “The line was always, ‘We don’t disagree that what’s happening in Gaza is terrible. We just don’t think you should have yelled about it at a party.’”

While several Democrats and Republicans contacted by WHYY News for their perspective on Wilson-Anton would not agree to be interviewed, state party vice chairman Coby Owens, who was just elected to Wilmington City Council, said he appreciates that Wilson-Anton has the courage to voice opinions, no matter how divisive.

Owens noted that while some “establishment-minded” politicos might be turned off by Wilson-Anton, those same people also praise the nonviolent protest of civil rights legends such as the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. and late former U.S. Rep. John Lewis, who described his civil disobedience as “good trouble.”

“She brings a needed voice, not only for Delaware but as a representative of a community that has been long overlooked,’’ Owens said. “That’s what you have to do to bring about changes, to bring awareness to injustice sometimes. Her overall push has been to lift up the voice of those who are hurting right now.”

Democratic state Sen. Laura Sturgeon, who represents suburbs northwest of Wilmington, worked with Wilson-Anton on the ceasefire resolution but couldn’t muster enough support to get it through the Senate.

Sturgeon said she is fond of her “intense” fellow Democrat, but not always of her methods or offensive remarks or tweets.

“She’s very principled and she’s willing to take some measures and tactics to bring awareness to the causes she believes in that I don’t always agree with,’’ Sturgeon said. “Although I have been asked by some to distance myself from her, I feel that just like with my Republican colleagues, some of whom I disagree vehemently on some core issues and values, I still work with them when we overlap.”

“There are times when I find her difficult to work with because she pushes me to go further than I feel comfortable going. And I have to have the strength to set my boundary where I want to set it.”

Josh Schoenberg, vice chair of the Jewish Federation of Delaware and an ex-director of the state Democratic Party, said that despite their sharp differences on Gaza, which they have not discussed, he enjoys Wilson-Anton’s company and respects her political and advocacy skills.

“She’s great at being able to bring her ideas and her concerns to the forefront,’’ Schoenberg said. “It catches attention, whether it’s in the media or within the legislature. So I give her credit for that. I don’t know if other people have had different experiences but I’ve never had a disagreeable conversation with her.”

She doesn’t care if fellow politicians don’t like her act

Though she’s all business on the House floor, especially during contentious hearings, Wilson-Anton laughs easily during conversations.

That sense of humor has carried her onto the stand-up stage. About two years ago, she started appearing at open mic nights, found she liked the spotlight and loved getting laughs.  Now, she has a gig about once a week at clubs in Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Maryland.

She has a relaxed style in front of an audience, whether talking about her desire for white privilege or performing other bits.

Wilmington Councilman Owens says she’s got real talent.

“When you’re dealing in such a serious, high-paced world [like politics], that could be a good outlet. I’ve seen her performing a few times. She’s really good.”

This fall, Wilson-Anton also began co-hosting a podcast, “For Lack of a Better Word,” with her uncle Rocky Wilson, who is also a comedian. She calls the show a lighthearted look at “Black history, about untold Black history.”

Should her act catch fire, Wilson-Anton would consider ditching the political gig.

“I would love to have my career be in entertainment, whether stand-up comedy or writing for TV shows or things like that,’’ she said.

She doesn’t see herself trekking to small clubs for two decades in hopes of hitting the big time, though. She and her husband would also like to have children someday.

Some allies have suggested she run for statewide office.

“She has so much potential, and I hope she runs for higher office,” said documentary director Sultan. “We need more voices like that, and I hope she inspires many more young Black and Muslim women to get into politics. She definitely dispels and challenges the stereotypes that we have about Muslim women in general in our mainstream media.”

Wilson-Anton said the lure of a bigger political post is enticing, but now she’s focusing on her state House seat.

Her current priorities include continuing to push for more equitable education funding, improving how volunteer fire companies get funded, improving state pension eligibility for emergency medical technicians, and addressing the use of illegal fireworks, among other issues she hasn’t yet made public.

She promises to remain the same fervent advocate she’s always been.

“I didn’t go to Dover to be there forever. I would rather be popular in my community than be popular amongst politicians,’’ she said.

“I would see that as a red flag, if I’m there six years in and I walk in and everybody’s like, ‘It’s Madinah! Madinah is here. We love Madinah. She’s the best!’ That means it’s probably time for me to get out of there.”