Wallace Benton
- Interviewer
- Ella Dietrich
- Date
- November 3, 2023
- Location of the Interview
- ZOOM (p1 in Alexandria, VA & p2 in Atlanta, GA)
- Length
- 1 hour, 2 minutes, 17 seconds
- Abstract
-
Wallace Benton, born and raised up and around Atlanta, Georgia, now resides in Alexandria, VA. He works as the first Associate Director of Lifelong Learning at Virginia Theological Seminary. With his recent experience as Lay Chaplain at University of the South in Sewanee, TN, and his prior extensive work in youth ministry, Wallace has found himself constantly surrounded by the church. The interview begins with discussions of Wallace’s life in Georgia and how he found community in his evolving classmates and church community. He discusses how his day-to-day life has matured since graduating from Georgia Tech with a Bachelor’s in International Affairs. He describes the difficulty of finding friends while working for the church. He offers advice that has propelled him through ups and downs.
He discusses how social media has influenced his way of thinking since Facebook’s initial launch. Wallace describes his first experience with the Black Lives Matter Movement with the death of young Treyvon Martin in 2012. He describes what it was like being a black man in a town with a majority of older affluent white people that had a lot of internalized racist views. Additionally, he speaks on white flight when he was in middle school. He talks about the oddity of bringing up #BLM in an adult church community just trying to be “woke”. He speaks to the positives that have occurred from the movement, including giving new, younger generations proud voices and platforms. In terms of his student’ lives, he has seen changes in their lives as a the “Gen Z” social media platform for #BLM blossomed, where their voices were starting to be heard. On his liturgical team today, he has learned from different voices from all over. Since the COVID-pandemic, Wallace sees the BLM movement disappearing without active participation in the fight as our lives have begun to be distracted.
Part of Wallace Benton