Ella Dietrich

Interviewee/ Narrator

Ella Dietrich

Ella Dietrich

Interviewer

Stewart Buchanan

Date

October 30, 2023

Location of the Interview

DuPont Library

Length

19 minutes, 59 seconds

Abstract

Ella Dietrich was born in 2003 on July 15th, in Madison, Wisconsin. She has worked in Milwaukee inner city Episcopal churches throughout her young adult life. She has also protested for many different causes such as BLM with her politically and socially active family. She attends Sewanee the University of the South and is a Neuroscience major, an active member of Kappa Delta sorority, and a sacristan at All Saints Chapel. She discusses her experiences within her community learning about BLM and their reactions to it, she comes from a “white middle class” neighborhood. They are progressive and supported the BLM movement with protests and signs. She explains that many people did not know, including herself, that they had never heard of BLM till the George Floyd incident. She describes her experience at a protest and what all went on during this time period in her community. Her experience with the inner city churches is what brought about her social activism. We discussed the current state of the BLM movement and how it is fizzling out because people no longer feel the need to be a part of something larger now that the covid lockdown has finished and people are back to their normal everyday lives. If people are not willing to be active in the movement again it will dissolve but eventually something similar will take its place. This is a part of the Black Lives Matter Oral History Program to document BLM in America.