Oral History Interview with Madelyn Smythia

Title: Oral History Interview with Madelyn Smythia
Interviewee: Madelyn Smythia
Interviewer: Kendoll Hayes
Description: Madelyn Smythia is an undergraduate student at Sewanee: The University of the South. She is a sophomore who is double majoring in history and music.
Transcript: Speaker 1 (00:29):
Okay, so this is Kendall Hayes from Suwanee. The University of the South is Thursday, Friday 15th, 2024 at 5:00 PM I am with,
Speaker 2 (00:44):
I'm Madeline Smith and trying to check something fast, but yeah, I'm Madeline Smith. Yeah,
Speaker 1 (00:53):
Where are you from?
Speaker 2 (00:54):
I'm from Murfreesboro, Tennessee, which is roughly about an hour, hour 15 if there's traffic from Swee. I currently live in Bell Buckle, which is right, not technically bell buckle, it's more Fosterville, but that's right on the border of Bedford and Rutherford Counties.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
Okay, well thank you for being here, Madeline.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1 (01:21):
Okay, so let's get to know each other. So what year are you and what are you studying?
Speaker 2 (01:29):
I'm currently a second year, so that means I'm a sophomore. I'm a history and then music theory and composition double major.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
Okay. That seems very challenging.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
Not yet. It's not too bad yet. I've got some really fun but difficult courses coming up in the next few years.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
Okay. So what traveling have you done?
Speaker 2 (01:57):
Traveling? I unfortunately can't say I've been much of a traveler. I've wanted to go abroad for a really long time. It's just my family hasn't had money to do so. I've been to a few states, not many. I haven't really been up north either. It's kind of unfortunate. I think the furthest north I've been was Pittsburgh and it was for an amusement park for maybe three or four hours. So I don't know how much I can count being in the state of Pennsylvania. But yeah, want to do more though.
Speaker 1 (02:32):
I don't really hear much about Pittsburgh. So what is it like there?
Speaker 2 (02:39):
I was maybe when we went, trying to think, I was maybe between eight and 11, I don't remember. I was with my cousins and my uncle and aunt and stuff who were going to, I forgot the name of the, but we were going up that way and I remember driving near Pittsburgh to do so. It looked like any other city. I didn't really unfortunately get a chance to walk around or anything, which is sad because I wish I had.
Speaker 1 (03:13):
So my next question, what is your favorite type of food?
Speaker 2 (03:18):
Favorite type of food? I really like things with chicken in it. I don't really have a specific dish. I just really like lighter meats. I'm not a big fan of beef right now, which is kind of interesting. That is kind of the food options that I get some places. But yeah, no, I just like chicken. I think one of my favorite foods is I really like hibachi chicken and rice. It is my favorite. I'm so upset that there's not a place closer to where school is where I would go all the time. Honestly, it's probably the best, but there isn't one because I do need to save my money for one. Yes.
Speaker 1 (04:03):
Yeah, hibachi is really good.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
I know I haven't
Speaker 1 (04:06):
Had it in a while.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
I used to go every year for my birthday. There was a place in downtown Murfreesboro and I'd go and we'd sit in front and they'd cook in front of us. All of that. Unfortunately, I came up to Swanee and it closed permanently, which is terrible. I'm so upset. I mean, it was a combination of they didn't get a lot of business before and I think Covid might've been the last nail in the coffin sucks. Luckily for me, I do live in Murfreesboro, so there's a ton of small businesses in a ton of places to go. I just have to find a new one, but that's always fun.
Speaker 1 (04:52):
We're going to ask you some questions about your thoughts about the Black Lives Matter movement. So how did you first encounter the Black Lives Matter movement?
Speaker 2 (05:08):
I encountered it first, I'll just preface with saying that theory I grew up in, we didn't really talk about anything like that and on the news, they didn't really focus on anything other than the good stuff or I don't know. We used to watch local news and my first really big introduction was right after George Floyd because we were in lockdown. So my family had the news on a lot and I saw when the stories were breaking and I had a lot of friends on social media who took it upon themselves to spread some more information. So I kind of learned through that way and obviously I did more research and found out there was a longer history of this kind of thing of police brutality and I was trying to, it was just my first real introduction because I was maybe 14, 15, I think 15, 16. I was going to turn 16 pretty soon after that happened. Just trying to remember if it was April or May or March when that occurred. But yeah, I was younger and I was not really exposed to anything to my parents, not because they were hiding anything, but because we kind of focus on lighter topics. Obviously once I asked questions, we had a conversation, but they kind of waited for that information to come to me first and for me to go to them instead of introducing it to me that way.
Speaker 1 (06:37):
So what are your thoughts on Black Lives Matter?
Speaker 2 (06:42):
I think it's a great movement. I feel like I know it's been happening for a long time. I just wish it didn't take something so terrible for it to truly get into everyone's homes. I wish it could have happened in a nicer manner and I'm kind of upset that people aren't talking about it as much, or at least in the circles that I'm in. I haven't seen many posts about it in at least a year or two. And that sucks because there's still stuff happening every day. And it was kind of nice when those tags would pop up when I was still on Twitter because I could learn about what was going on. I could do research with a lot of education and I just am upset one that I don't know why it's getting lost cycle or what, but yeah, I really wish it had come about and had really gone, I guess viral in more due to a positive thing. But of course things go viral because something bad happens. But yeah, because I know that there was several of events prior, obviously because I saw this happen, I was like, whoa, that's not good. And I did more research. But yeah, I just wish it had came about in a more positive way. I mean it did. I just wish everyone knew about it because of a positive reason and not because we had draw attention to it because it was just getting worse and worse.
Speaker 1 (08:10):
So you seem really impassioned about it. I do.
Speaker 2 (08:13):
I have a lot of friends in high school and I had several people share stories with me of things that had happened and I can't say obviously that I've experienced anything. But yeah, just some of the stuff that they've told me, several of them are afraid of police officers and I mean, I've been scared of cops forever. I don't know why. I mean I have a reason now, but just stuff that I've heard because just driving the car and the things that they've told me that they have to do, things that I don't even think about when I'm out in public, it made me angry. Why can I do these things and someone else, it's just not fair and it makes me very angry to think about all my friends who have had terrible experiences.
Speaker 1 (09:02):
And how has the Black Lives Matter movement impacted you and how you interact with your friends and going into detail with how has it affected your family?
Speaker 2 (09:15):
I think impacted at least my family pretty positively. I know for me, I was not as educated as I should have been and this was a good push for me to take those steps and learn more. I know my parents, I'm very proud of them because they actually took initiative to learn things as well, which I know a lot of people their age did not make that effort. And I know it didn't impact everyone positively because I know some older it caused family schisms. I know it caused some between my father and his brother because of conflicting views, which that's a whole other thing. He's a whole other individual. But yeah, I think it impacted my direct family positively and it impacted the way I interact with friends just because we all kind of, half of us knew what was going on prior, they had just had friends who had had personal experiences or they were a lot more involved with watching the, but a lot of us were learning it together and I remember there was a lot of like, oh my gosh, because we just not had any interactions with it prior.
(10:28):
So it just interacted excuse, I'm getting all my tongue tied. They take your time. But it impacted the way we were just interacting with each other. I know a lot of my friends now are still really involved with public activism. I know my student council president was, I think she went to several of the peaceful protest stuff in Nashville. I don't know much about her experience, but I remember her posting about it and sending information of here's what's going on, here's where it's happening, here's how you could get there, stuff like that. I unfortunately could not go, but I did try to at least do as much education as I could and the people who were going, I tried to support them in as many ways as possible.
Speaker 1 (11:14):
Great. So what do you think is the future of Black Lives Matter?
Speaker 2 (11:21):
I think there's two different outcomes. I think hopefully the next, we don't have to have something bad happen, more people become aware of it, and I'm hoping enough of us get riled up to really start pushing for systemic change because nothing is going to change until we start, I don't know, expressing these issues because you need enough people riled up and I feel like a lot of those kind of peaceful protests specifically for this, there's been different ones over different issues over the past few years. They kind of slowed down and I think especially since our generation's learning more and more about it and becoming older and able to vote, I think that's really going to impact we put into office and I'm hoping that maybe in the next five something years we're able to actually make some reforms. I don't want to think about the alternative, so I'm going to not think about the alternative where this doesn't happen. But we've already seen positive changes in the polls where X Gen Z is officially starting to get more of us are becoming 18 and older and able to vote. And I hope that maybe in this next election there'll be a change, but obviously I can't predict that.
Speaker 1 (12:47):
So I recall you mentioned that your friends are really, really impassioned about Black Lives Matter and they participate in a lot.
Speaker 2 (12:57):
Some of 'em I'm not. I'm fortunately we kind of drifted apart after graduation. I was a part of a massive graduating class and I went here and I think, I mean only me and my roommate from my graduating class went to this university. All of them went to HSU. So I, outside of social media, don't really get to interact anymore, but I know several of them, especially what's going on in Palestine and Israel, they've been very vocal in trying to get as much information as possible. It's like they do a lot more activism and I know a few of them. I don't know if anybody's gone to a protest recently, but I know especially in 2020 and I don't know if Roe was 2022 or not, but I know a lot of them participated in those marches. I'm just a little mad at myself that I didn't, but maybe in the future because I can drive now. So hopefully that'll change a few things.
Speaker 1 (13:55):
Okay, great. So going back to when you first encountered Black Lives Matter up until now, do you think there has been more of a, how would I say, has there been more of a shift in the way that you thought before or was it simply it was brought to your attention?
Speaker 2 (14:27):
I think I will just say the theory I grew up in didn't have the best access for education especially that's one of the main things of getting angry about in college is because I'm learning about things that I definitely should have been taught several in elementary school, but I don't know why I don't know it till now. So I guess education made a big impact because I can say that the education changed my thought pattern because I really don't want to think about the alternative where I did not take the initiative to get educated and a lot of my friends pushed me as well. They all pushed themselves to go get educated about proper way communicating, learning about what's going on, the history behind it. So I could say that there was a nice shift in thought pattern. Not saying that I was a bad person, I think I was unintentionally rude.
(15:20):
I didn't know what I was saying. So education really makes a big difference and that's one of the things I liked about and currently about the movement is because it brings it to people's attention of, Hey, there's this systemic issue going on. We need to fix it here. And then going through research, so the movement, you can find posts about it, you can go through there, go to archives and stuff and learn more about the history of police brutality and systemic racism and it's just, I think the education was a very positive thing for me.
Speaker 1 (15:58):
I know I keep bringing up the time lapse questions and what you've observed from your first encounter up until now and possibly what you think may happen in the future, what is your view on what's wrong with race relations in this country?
Speaker 2 (16:23):
I think that unfortunately they are not improving, and I think sometimes political figures being in power have aggravated those and made them believe that they can say what they want. I don't think it was better a few years ago. I just think people didn't want to say anything because I can speak, especially for my area, those relatives didn't suddenly adopt these views. They just felt it was okay to say it in the open. And I had kind of talked about this with one of my friends that the older generation, this movement kind of soured thinking a little bit, it kind of made them feel like they needed to go out into the open and say things. So I think it's unfortunately still very tense and I don't think enough is being done to properly address it and people are just getting angrier and not talking and it just really gets on my nerves because so much could be solved if we all just took action and just talked, had a conversation, made the changes, worked with lawmakers assuming they worked with us to change those laws.
Speaker 1 (17:37):
Have you ever actively experienced those kind of talking points or is it from a scenario where you've seen online or you heard friends?
Speaker 2 (17:47):
I've had those talking negative ones that I'm referring to. Unfortunately, I do have some older relatives who thinks that I'm going to agree with them, so they trap me at dinner tables. It's a thing that has happened multiple times now where a relative will be like, oh yes, I should talk to her about this. She's not going to argue with me. And they quickly find out that I'm probably going to argue with 'em. It doesn't help. Some of my older relatives are just, I have a great aunt who's like 90 and I love her, but she needs to, sometimes it would be better to not say so I've experienced some of that and I have experienced, because I have curly hair and in elementary school I've had people, I got told at one point on the school bus to go back to Mexico because I had curly hair because he was, this was I think 2016 around the time of the election and when a lot of that racism really started to amp, not that it was new, but it started to really amp up.
(19:03):
So I've kind of experienced, unfortunately firsthand, I've had so many people, not as much anymore that I drive by with big Trump flags in their yard, and one of the times I was driving home from here, I think this was last semester actually, I drove by I think eight or nine Confederate flags in my 40 minute drive in a 20 minute stretch. It was, I didn't expect because they hadn't been up before or if they had been, maybe it was just, I just happened to see them that day, but it's just unfortunately I get all this negative attention to it and I don't know. I've unfortunately experienced that and I know many of my friends have as well. I think everyone, it's a generalization and I apologize, but I feel like a lot of people in my area have at least one relative that decided during this time, I'm going to say everything out loud and I'm going to be active against positive change. I know there's a whole branch in my family we don't really talk to anymore, not specifically because of it, but it made us realize how problematic some of those relatives were.
Speaker 1 (20:28):
You've mentioned your family so far. Have you been able to grasp how your entire community was affected by in their views?
Speaker 2 (20:39):
I know a lot of the younger generation, my high school had about I think 2100 people, and I know for my generation, if we're going to go generational with this, I think everyone reacted differently. I know that people around me, even outside of my friend group, were posting things, raising awareness, some also because their family was like that, they were like that and decided to do the opposite. I know a lot of my dad's friends at work, friends at work used term loosely, kind of interacted with it in a more negative way and my dad would come home annoyed. Just those kind of things. And I know a lot of the older generation, not Gen X, that's my parents, but baby boomers like the silent generation, my great aunt interact. I don't know if it's because they were so much older that they just were kind of set in their ways or what, but it did impact my community pretty heavily because I'm in a predominantly Republican right-leaning area.
(21:54):
So when this sort of stuff started happening, everyone decided, everyone did interact in some way. I didn't really see many people stay completely silent because everyone wanted to say their opinion, but it did kind of, especially with friend groups, friend and stuff that did cause schisms within families and stuff like that because I know several of my acquaintances had issues with relatives because of that. Regardless of which opinion they held I'm using, yeah, these are generalizations, but just for Murfreesboro, I can't really speak on Shelbyville. I'm imagining it's much of the same issue, just Rutherford County, especially because I know you're from Nashville, so you're nearby is just sort of, it's huge and there's so many different people that interact at a daily basis and I think we had some people at Our Town Square maybe peacefully demonstrating. I don't fully remember, just because there was a ton happening at that time with the pandemic and there was just so much noise from all different social media and the news.
Speaker 1 (23:12):
So going back to your idea of there were different reactions from different generations, what generation do you feel was greatly impacted more?
Speaker 2 (23:29):
I think that Gen Z was purely because for most of us, I know there's some that are older. I think the oldest right now is maybe 26, 27, but I know at least for a majority of us, we were maybe still in our teens and at that time your sense of self isn't fully developed yet and new information, your mind has easily changed and I feel like a lot of people, once they became aware of this and did research or interacted in some way, it changed their way of thinking and I feel like that was more of a positive impact. I'm hoping, at least for the people that I've spoken to specifically about this, it's been more of a positive shift. But I think Gen Z out of the current living generations was more impacted. I can't speak for Generation Alpha, they were very young when this was going on. I'm assuming it probably impacted them a lot too, because growing up when this is happening would be a big change. Millennials, I don't know, I think they're not old, but they're not young either. They're kind of in that middle, but I think it impacted them as well. But I think the one that had the most, probably generation C.
Speaker 1 (24:44):
Okay, so going back to your views on Black Lives Matter, I recall you mentioned that you generally supported and you feel that it had an overall positive impact on you and your family and your friends and your relationships between those people. So let's still deeper. What exactly do you feel they did well as far from other movements and what do you feel like they could have possibly done a little better?
Speaker 2 (25:23):
I think that the way I'm going to kind of blend it with social media here, the way social media made it blow up the way it did because it got to a lot of people really quickly and a lot of information was quickly spread, and I think that helped a lot of people learn about it really quickly. I don't know many people in this country now who don't know what Black Lives Matter is because of how, I guess viral it got, it was pretty well known before, but I think the shifting point was 2020 and something it could have done better. Also social media because after a while it got kind of watered down because people were spreading misinformation. It started off as a resource and quickly became something where you had to fact check what was being sent. People were twisting the narrative. I think you probably remember what I'm talking about. They would show videos just for the sake of showing videos. You got a time thing pop up.
Speaker 1 (26:27):
I don't dunno why that, yeah,
Speaker 2 (26:31):
It'll be okay, but I was saying I think that the way that shift happened, I think it kind of was negative and I think hopefully in the future we could do better about spreading the information and preventing misinformation side of things. Because I remember seeing obviously the video of kneeling on George Floyd, but quickly people started posting the video to post the video and not really to be like, look at how terrible this is. You need to do something about it. And more of just like, look at this. You should watch this. Not educational or something. We need to change, but you should just watch this to watch it. And I feel like that was very negative and I feel like people stopped paying as much attention to it after 20 21, 20 22, because I don't know why people drifted away from it. I don't know if there's just another issue that popped up and they're like, we should shift to this. That's probably what it was, but I just feel like I hope in the future we're able to get momentum back so people can keep getting educated and make change.
Speaker 1 (27:48):
This is really nerve wracking because I thought I wasn't expecting the timer to pop up.
Speaker 2 (27:59):
I have to pay Zoom to give me full time
Speaker 1 (28:06):
New.
Speaker 2 (28:07):
It's new, but we've got some time. I mean the remaining meeting time thing, is it changing for me? It's okay. Yes, it's okay. Let's continue then because we have limited time, we'll cut this little section if you want to.
Speaker 1 (28:23):
That's okay.
Speaker 2 (28:31):
More questions for me or do we want to shift to something else?
Speaker 1 (28:39):
I'll just say are there any other comments that you probably have left out from the other questions that you probably haven't said yet that you feel like you might need to rather explain?
Speaker 2 (28:54):
I don't think I need to further explain. I think my main point, I can just sum it up is that I really hope in the next five years we really start paying attention again because I'm not saying people fully stopped. We just need to start actually continuing with the momentum we did so people can learn because it was so positive for me to learn and it's just so important and I hope we're able to like that. These interviews make more resources so people can find out more information in the future because in five, six years there's going to be, generation now is going to be in high school learning about this, and I want there to be more information for them so they can be like, oh my goodness, we need to make change and work with so we can actually get the government to pay attention and make proper changes and not say, oh, this was terrible, and then end it with stuff.
(29:52):
Prayers, they're in our prayers, the speech we get. I mean even with school shootings and stuff, I'm hoping we all, with Black Lives Matter and all of the other very important movements that are happening right now, I hope we're able to get more education and to actually go and I hope that there's a protest soon in my area that I can go to. They seem to be picking places on days that I cannot attend, so I'm going to manifest that one is nearby so I can actually be out there as opposed to talking about being out there.
Speaker 1 (30:34):
I remember that you referenced that you feel like it should be more to go into continuing to spread the message. Yes. What would you think would be more beneficial that they probably haven't done yet?
Speaker 2 (30:52):
School curriculum, especially in Tennessee. I don't know how bad it was at your school, but mine was actually atrocious because there's so many great figures just in history in general that I was not taught about. I didn't really, even as a musician, I didn't really know about the Harlem Renaissance really because we would brush over it and I think if we start there and start teaching kids other stories as opposed to the ones we've always been told, I think that off the bat would help exponentially instead of as an adult, me being in college learning about things that I should have known a long time ago, my parents are having the same problem. It got better from when my father was a kid. We went to the same high school, but it wasn't by much and all of the pushes now to continue removing books because of their message being not school appropriate or perpetuating a narrative or whatever argument they're using from these books to not be in schools.
(32:00):
I think if we could stop that and actually get more variety as opposed to the white side of history, I want to learn, I think everyone should learn all of it good and the bad because without the full picture, you don't understand what's going on and you can't understand what we're now, and I think it would save everyone a lot of time if they didn't have to do reeducation. I think I could speak for a lot of my friends where they're learning a lot of this along with me with respect to history courses in college. So I'm just hoping we can fix curriculum first because if that would make a massive impact.
Speaker 1 (32:41):
That's great. I actually agree with that statement because I can absolutely say that I've experienced the same thing.
Speaker 2 (32:50):
No public school system so bad. It was so bad. And just thinking about what people told me in elementary school specifically makes me so angry because I was just a little kid. I wanted to learn history and not a fun story to tell. It shouldn't be a story. It should be what happened. And I know it's fun to send these happy narrative with kids, but if you can show videos of nine 11, you can talk about the darker sides of history because I remember they showed me videos of people hopping out of the tower in second grade and if you could show that you can teach all sides of history equally as important. I don't know if they did that to you too, but I know they did that to me many years ago.
Speaker 1 (33:41):
I remember very vividly when I was in elementary school, we had, I think it was like a Tennessee history week, and one of our highlights was, it was Andrew Jackson Wil Rudolph, and it was someone else, I can't remember at the moment. And it was the same narrative. It was always, oh, Andrew Jackson was this great president. He put Tennessee on the map because he was the first one to be elected president from the state of Tennessee. And it wasn't until, I would say it was kind of traumatizing because my mom had to sit me down one day. It was like, yeah, that happened, but he also did this, this and this.
Speaker 2 (34:34):
I can say that there were some field trips that they took us on. I don't know if you know who Sam Davis is, but they took us to his house and it was a terrible field trip because they were telling us how he was a hero. All of these things, just this twisted narrative civil war when you could have just told us the true story. Also, little kids should not be going to that kind of a historical house, and it was on Halloween too. It was a terrible culture trip. I hate it to this day, but just stuff like that. There's so many better places to go. I know Nashville has so many great museums, so many states have such great museums that we just don't go to and you take kids to these figures, houses and I don't know, education. I think fixing that would be a massive, would help exponentially, I think, and I think you could agree with me.
Speaker 1 (35:35):
Well, it's wrap unfortunately out of time. Well, it was great to talk to you and their viewpoint. Well, if you want to talk any further about this, I'm completely open to do so. Okay, great. You have a nice day. You as well. Thank you so much. Thank you for your time today.

Part of Madelyn Smythia