Oral History Interview with Sarah Buchanan

Title: Oral History Interview with Sarah Buchanan
Interviewee: Sarah Buchanan
Interviewer: Stewart Buchanan
Description: Sarah Buchanan of Dallas, Texas was interviewed by Stewart Buchanan, a Sewanee student, on November 30th, 2023, on Zoom. While their conversation was primarily on the Black Lives Matter Movement, other topics included discussing protests that occurred in the wake of George Floyd’s death. We hope that this conversation will assist scholars with a further understanding of race in the United States during the early twenty-first century. Please click on the link to see the full interview.
Transcript: 0:02 Stewart Buchana...: Okay.

0:03 Sarah Buchanan: All right. This is Stewart Buchanan from Sewanee, the University of South. It is Thursday, November 30th, 2023 at 7:25 PM I'm with

0:16 Stewart Buchana...: Sarah Buchanan,

0:18 Sarah Buchanan: And you're from

0:19 Stewart Buchana...: Dallas, Texas.

0:21 Sarah Buchanan: Thank you Sarah Buchanan for being here. Where are you originally? From?

0:28 Stewart Buchana...: Where I was born?

0:30 Sarah Buchanan: Yes.

0:31 Stewart Buchana...: Corpus Christi, Texas.

0:34 Sarah Buchanan: And how's where you currently live different from when you were raised?

0:39 Stewart Buchana...: Oh gosh. Well, I was raised in London, England, and so times are very different from the times of when I was growing up as opposed to living here in Dallas.

0:55 Sarah Buchanan: How was it different?

0:57 Stewart Buchana...: Well, in London I was very independent even though I was very little. I went to the American school in London in St. John's Wood, and I rode the tube, the underground to school to and from, which is a train, and I had to change trains. And I did that every day by myself all through growing up and through high school. So it's different because I took the underground, I took the double decker buses even to see a friend of mine that to go see friends, I would take a double decker bus or I would take taxis. You didn't hop in a car to go to the grocery store or to go see a friend or to a movie. You walked a lot or you took buses or you took the train.

2:08 Sarah Buchanan: What else about it was different?

2:10 Stewart Buchana...: Well, everything was pedestrian, meaning that you walked everywhere, so you were on the street, meaning that people were around you all the time. You were in traffic, you were crossing busy streets, very different from hopping in your car and going, hopping in your car and running up to the grocery store. Back then, most neighborhoods where I grew up, you had a high street, which had a butcher, a main grocer. You had individual shops that you would go to and you would shop daily. My mom would shop daily for our groceries, and so it wasn't like you ran to calm them or wherever, get your groceries for a full week. So it was very different. You just had public transportation as opposed to, and you walked everywhere.

3:25 Sarah Buchanan: Okay. And where did you find community as a child?

3:30 Stewart Buchana...: Well, mostly at my school because I was American and my community was at the American school in London, which was where you would find type people because the British at the time were not too keen on Americans. And so even when I was a young child and I'd be on the train riding to and from school, they would say, go home, yank, or sometimes not be very nice. So my community was at my school, and most American kids that were at my school came from all over different parts of the United States. And then also my community was at our church, an American church that I really participated in.

4:33 Sarah Buchanan: All right. And where do you find community today?

4:36 Stewart Buchana...: Well, in lots of different areas because an adult now. And so I have the ability to have different types of community, which would be through, some of it is through some of my son's friends, mothers. Some is through long term friendships from college. Some is from my work. The group that I work with is a strong community. And then my family.

5:17 Sarah Buchanan: What is your occupation and what was your journey to this role?

5:22 Stewart Buchana...: Well, currently I'm working, I'm a professional organizer, which with emphasis on design work, and my road to this position started about five years ago when I needed to have a job that was flexible in order for me to be home at three o'clock when my sons came home from school, because it was very important for me to be home, to do carpool, to be able to cook dinners, to run them to tutoring and football practices. And so finding part-time jobs is very hard. But this one came about through a mutual friend and who was starting a business and knew that I had a lot of design talent as well as I was very organized. So I was with her when she started her business. And it's grown from just doing organizational work to actual design work where I work with architects that, and help influence them on doing more functional spacing when they're drawing up plans for people's homes, meaning how they doing spacing that is actually usable as opposed to aesthetic type environments that are just more to look at instead of how to actually use the different spacing.

7:12 Sarah Buchanan: Where else have you worked?

7:14 Stewart Buchana...: I've worked at many places. I had a career prior to being married for 12 years. I worked for Kelly Services, which is a temporary service placement company. It's been around for many, many years. And I started off with them at the very, very bottom, and they offered me a corporate training, which I went through that. And so I started off placing people in a branch into jobs and then worked my way into sales as a sales rep. Then I became a branch manager, then I became a sales manager. And then at the end of 12 years, I was a regional manager where I was running 10 branches and was in charge of all corporate accounts and managing those relationships.

8:23 Sarah Buchanan: Very cool. Very cool. Who inspires you and what traits do these individuals have?

8:29 Stewart Buchana...: Well, someone very important to me. My father inspired me quite a bit growing up. He had an amazing work ethic, very strong values, and was respected by many, many people. And just watching my father and seeing how hard he worked and how if he said something, he meant it and he would do it. He was very honest and I just always wanted to emulate him. And he used to take me to work. And in the summers in college, I had internships working at a bank downtown Houston, where I lived at the time when I was in college. And so I had the chance to ride to work back and forth with my dad. So we talked a lot about business and work. He was an attorney, oil and gas attorney. And so just listening to him and seeing the kind of relationships that he built with his business and had clients that were sometimes 20, 30 year clients as well as some very important ones, some Saudi Arabian princes and some very influential oil companies. I always wanted to, I just saw how relationships were so important in building your business or building your rapport wherever you work.

10:26 Sarah Buchanan: Yeah, very cool. What traveling have you done?

10:31 Stewart Buchana...: I've traveled pretty much all around the world, living in London. My family would travel all the time, traveled all over England and traveled in Wales, traveled in Ireland and then in Europe, have been to most places in Europe, saw snow for the first time in bu Austria, and we used to go skiing in Verbier in Switzerland. But the most interesting place, we spent a month in Cairo in Egypt over Christmas. And so we had a lot of cultural, cultural type experiences, which I think,

11:27 Sarah Buchanan: Sorry,

11:27 Stewart Buchana...: Go on. Which helped, I think, influence the person that I am.

11:35 Sarah Buchanan: What all did you do whenever you're traveling, such as in Egypt, in Austria?

11:40 Stewart Buchana...: Well, it was very important for us to experience the actual countries sort of feel, and we would go to always local restaurants and go to stay at local pence and kits fuel. And that was always important for us to be able to really see what the country was about. And in Cairo, we did a lot of touring around, but probably one of the most interesting things, we got to go to a wedding of a very local person and see an Egyptian wedding. But I also got to, I rode horses in England, and so my father got, my sister and I Arabian horses, and we had the chance to ride horses in the Sahara Desert by the pyramids, and that was really a very, very cool thing. And I will always remember that.

13:14 Sarah Buchanan: That's really cool. What's your favorite type of food?

13:18 Stewart Buchana...: What's my tail? Oh gosh, I don't know. Maybe Italian, maybe. I think Italian food is probably one of my most favorite.

13:36 Sarah Buchanan: What dish?

13:42 Stewart Buchana...: I would have to say. Maybe one of the, I'll just, gosh, I don't know. I'm just trying to think of something. I like them all. I'll say chicken Parmesan.

13:55 Sarah Buchanan: All right. And how have you experienced international cultures in your life on top of the traveling?

14:08 Stewart Buchana...: Well, I've had different friends that are from different countries, and I think that's exposed me to different cultures, international cultures.

14:22 Sarah Buchanan: Where are they from?

14:25 Stewart Buchana...: One is from Sweden. Our neighbor that lives, that's kind of like a nanny, sort of helps me do dog walking and so forth. And I think, who else? I kept up with a lot of my friends that I knew London, but I'm trying to think, I can't think off the top of my head. Anybody currently that's from a different country right now.

15:03 Sarah Buchanan: Okay. So what is your experience with social media? Well,

15:11 Stewart Buchana...: I am barely on social media. The only social media. I do do Instagram and I only have things on Instagram that I want to see, that I choose to follow, which is mostly gardening, beautiful architectural country homes in England, decorating, just sort of things that I really want to see. And then on Facebook, the only thing that I really go on Facebook to look at is parent type forums that are related to my son's schools that I need to follow. That's it.

16:06 Sarah Buchanan: Alright. And how did you first encounter the Black Lives Matter movement? How'd you first hear about it

16:15 Stewart Buchana...: On tv on the news?

16:19 Sarah Buchanan: Well, what'd you hear about it?

16:21 Stewart Buchana...: Oh, what did I hear about? Yeah. Well, I think it was initially started regarding the Floyd issue, and then it sort of exploded with the different rioting and it was all strained from Qual Justice with the police encounter. And so I think that's when I first saw about it. It's mostly just on the news.

17:07 Sarah Buchanan: All right. And what is your opinion of the Black Lives Matter movement?

17:17 Stewart Buchana...: Well, I think everybody has their own right to be able to feel and say what they feel strongly about. And so I think there's, everyone has the right to say how they feel about if there's justice or not justice. And what has occurred,

17:58 Sarah Buchanan: What was your community's reaction to the Black Lives Matter movement?

18:04 Stewart Buchana...: My particular community was, there was some rioting and with freeways being shut down, there was where there was going to be a march through our neighborhood, which was then going to, we all had to stay in our homes and had a curfew. And our police got involved because the rioting was going to be against white people. And it happens to be that our neighborhood is as influential in Dallas and very important people live here in the neighborhood. And there is a lot of wealth in our neighborhood. And so some of it was being targeted towards people of that nature, which doesn't make sense to me. But people were very nervous about it. I was very nervous about it because you just didn't know what to expect because of what you would see on TV and Chicago and New York and places that just got way out of hand.

19:34 Sarah Buchanan: Which generation do you think was most affected by the Black Lives Matter movement?

19:40 Stewart Buchana...: Well, like age group?

19:42 Sarah Buchanan: Yeah. Which generation?

19:47 Stewart Buchana...: Well, I think from high school all the way through college, all the way up to late twenties.

19:59 Sarah Buchanan: Why do you think that is?

20:02 Stewart Buchana...: I think maybe because of social media things was more people were able to, I don't know, I just kind of think that maybe I can't give you a specific reason why, but I think possibly that could be it.

20:26 Sarah Buchanan: Alright. How has the Black Lives Matter movement impacted your life? Well,

20:36 Stewart Buchana...: I think it's definitely brought to my attention. I don't know, because I never had a ill feeling or I never had any, I don't know. I never had any racial thoughts or that's never been part of my life. And so to have this sort of strong of push towards Black Lives Matter, I guess Black lives have always mattered to me. I've never thought anything else otherwise. But it clearly shows that there is a deficit in people thinking that. And I don't know, I can't say it's really changed my life in any way because it's never thought otherwise.

21:50 Sarah Buchanan: Has Black Lives Matter affected how you talk with family and friends?

21:54 Stewart Buchana...: No.

21:57 Sarah Buchanan: Alright. And how has the Black Lives Matter movement changed how you interact with people of other races?

22:05 Stewart Buchana...: It hasn't. I've never had any problems or any different way of thinking. The way I've treated anybody that is of any other color or race. I find everyone to be very equal in my life.

22:25 Sarah Buchanan: How do you think the Black Lives Matter movement has succeeded?

22:31 Stewart Buchana...: Well, I think for a lot of the, it possibly is brought more attention to certain areas that have needed maybe possibly more attention and in equality where possibly there was an equality. But I think sometimes it can have brought on a negative attention as well because it has created so many anti feelings as well.

23:16 Sarah Buchanan: So other than creating all the anti feelings, how do you think it's failed?

23:22 Stewart Buchana...: Well, I can't say it's failed. I wouldn't use that word. I don't know how to gauge if it's been successful or if it's failed.

23:31 Sarah Buchanan: Well, in what ways has it not been successful?

23:36 Stewart Buchana...: Well, like I just said, I think sometimes it has brought on a very negative feeling because of the protesting and the rioting. And I think that tends for it to be not as a positive environment.

24:01:00 Sarah Buchanan: And what do you think the state of race relations is in the United States?

24:09:00 Stewart Buchana...: Well, I think sometimes that's, depending on where you live. I don't encounter any racial issues. It doesn't cross my path. Maybe it's the way, it is never been an issue with my interacting with anybody. But I'm sure in different parts of the country there are probably issues with that.

24:43:00 Sarah Buchanan: And what do you think is the future of the Black Lives Matter movement?

24:51:00 Stewart Buchana...: Lives? Lives? To be honest with you, I haven't really kept up with it. I don't know. I have not kept up with what's maybe what the actual they are trying to achieve. I don't have the answer to that. Have they achieved what they started out to achieve? I don't have the answer to that.

25:19:00 Sarah Buchanan: Okay. Okay. Well thank you Sarah, so much for your time. I really appreciate it.

25:26:00 Stewart Buchana...: You're very welcome, Stuart.

Part of Sarah Buchanan