Ryan Stevenson is a field organizer for Cory Booker’s presidential campaign in Waterloo. -promoted by Laura Belin

I first heard about Cory Booker in my political communications class in 2012. We watched a documentary about a young man, eager to change his community while battling a political machine. Looking back, Newark is a lot like Waterloo: a large minority population without a lot of opportunities for those minorities. Just last year, it was said that Waterloo is the worst place in America for African Americans.

It was difficult for me to get through that class and the rest of my classes, because I knew at the end of the semester I would be turning myself in to the Federal Bureau of Corrections.