William Buchanan · Sewanee: Black Lives Matter Oral History Project

Interviewee/ Narrator

William Buchanan

Interviewer

Stewart Buchanan

Date

November 30, 2023

Location of the Interview

Zoom

Length

21 minutes, 26 seconds

Abstract

William Buchanan was born in Dallas, Texas, January 4th 1958. He grew up in the city of New Orleans, Louisiana. New Orleans was a much smaller community with a blend of lots of different cultures. William found his community as a child in the church as his dad was very involved, he was a part of the youth group for many years. He still finds community in his church in Dallas. William has had a very extensive adult life with multiple different career paths which include the Navy, investment banking, as well as real estate. William has also traveled extensively around the world throughout his whole adult life, most notably, he was in China for a month and traveled all over the mediterranean and north atlantic while in the navy. William gets most of his news from the newspaper which he reads everyday. The news was his first experience with the Black Lives Matter movement most likely from the New York Times. William has a very progressive view for people in his age group with him highlighting the main points of the BLM movement and discrediting the All Lives Matter movement. He believes that the Black Lives Matter movement has fundamentally changed police training and police behavior. He believes that the BLM movement has been successful in many facets but also believes that people have a limited tolerance for change and that the cause for the decline in BLM is just the natural swing of things and eventually it will come back to a peak. This is a part of the Black Lives Matter Oral History Program to document BLM in America.