Woodland For Congress

As a single mother of two Minister Toya Woodland is committed to community change through the love of Christ. Minister
Woodland accepted her call to preach the gospel on June 29, 2014. 

As a teen and young adult, Minister Woodland blossomed into a powerful
leader in her community. With an intense passion for justice Minister
Woodland realized at a very early age that the scales of justice were greatly
unbalanced. It became quite clear that the justice system was not just when it came to
people of color. It was this realization that drove Minister Woodland to fight aggressively
for equality and social justice in her community. 
As a community liaison for Walsh Construction, Minister Woodland worked closely with
the Department of Labor, unions, subcontractors, and OSHA to ensure fair hiring
practices for minorities and women. In recent years, Minister Woodland has fought for
change in everything from bias testing in our schools, to mass suspension, as well as
mass incarceration.
As an intern with Isaiah MN, Minister Woodland worked with the criminal justice team to
organize around mass incarceration. As a criminal justice team member, Minister
Woodland co-led a campaign to reduce mandatory minimums for drug offenses, which
resulted in a reduction of jail time for 1st and 2nd-degree drug offenses. She is also co-
spearheaded the fight against reopening CCA, an empty private prison in Appleton, MN.
It is because of the strong presence of Minister Woodland and the other team members
that this prison remains closed today.
More recently Minister Toya Director worked Director of Operations at Brothers
Empowered, a non-profit organization, which focuses on the mentorship of African
American boys between the ages of 8 and 17. As well as continued work with
organizations such as Black Lives Matter, TCCJ4J, Stand Up, and countless other
organizations in order to continue the fight against mass suspension in our schools,
Mass incarceration, Police Brutality, as well as fighting for community control of the
police and working to restore the right of citizens to vote upon returning to the
community after incarceration. Ask Minister Woodland why the community work she
does is so important and she will quote one of her favorite scriptures.
Luke 4:18-19“The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me Because He has anointed Me
To preach the gospel to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, To
proclaim liberty to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, To set at liberty those
who are oppressed; To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.”