1 Name: Nadine J. Seiler Date of Interview: February 5, 2021 Location: Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library, 901 G St. NW, Washington, DC 20001 Interviewer: Owen Rogers Project: Black Lives Matter Memorial Fence Recording: Digital Audio & Video (MOV; MP4; WAV) HH:MM:SS 00:00:07 INTERVIEWER: Today is February 5, 2021, my name is Owen Rogers and I’m recording an oral history at the Washington, DC Public Library for the Washington, DC Public Library Archive. For the record, would you please give us your name? NADINE SEILER: Nadine J. Seiler INTERVIEWER: And would you please give me the spelling of your last name for the transcriber? NADINE SEILER: S-E-I-L as in Larry-E as in Edward-R as in Robert 00:00:38 INTERVIEWER: Thank you so much, we’re going to start off the interview with the story about you. Where were you born? NADINE SEILER: I was born in Trinidad and Tobago, Port of Spain General Hospital. INTERVIEWER: And where did you grow up? NADINE SEILER: I grew up in Trinidad, I came to the United States at the age of 22. INTERVIEWER: And what year was that? NADINE SEILER: 1987, I came on Halloween. It was a Saturday, yes. INTERVIEWER: What was that experience like? NADINE SEILER: Um, well, I came to some disappointment on Halloween in 1987 but it worked out. INTERVIEWER: Now how about your parents, what are their names? NADINE SEILER: My father, who is deceased, his name is Yeussef Orlando Otego and my biological mother is Yvette Joseph. INTERVIEWER: Do you have any siblings? 2 NADINE SEILER: I have five brothers and three sisters, one brother deceased. INTERVIEWER: What do your siblings do for a living? NADINE SEILER: My sister works in import and export, my brother is an electrician, and my other brother works in air conditioning, and my sister is an accountant. INTERVIEWER: That’s quite the range. NADINE SEILER: Yes and one sister is a homemaker. 00:02:15 INTERVIEWER: And how about you? When you aren’t the curator of the Black Lives Matter Memorial Fence? NADINE SEILER: In my past life, I was a home organizer, mover, what do you call it? I worked on a task platform like a gig platform, where if somebody needed something done immediately they would contact me and I would go buy their friends donuts and Georgetown Cupcakes and wine for parties and stuff like that. Very fun. And people actually actually like having that opportunity for somebody to think think of a friend and say “my friend’s birthday is today and I didn’t think to buy that person a birthday card” or something and have somebody do it immediately. People really appreciate you. 00:03:12 INTERVIEWER: I believe it and that brings us to the Black Lives Memorial Matter social movement. NADINE SEILER: Yes INTERVIEWER: And how did you first become aware of Black Lives Matter? NADINE SEILER: Well I knew of the term “Black Lives Matter” back in 2012 when Trayvon Martin died so I knew of it in the peripheral and then when Trump first came into office and we were protesting him I remember seeing the t-shirts being worn by white people, white allies and I found it kind of strange because black people were not wearing the t-shirt that says “Black Lives Matter” so it was I don’t know why at the time that we were not wearing it but it was something that I found kind of strange that our allies were but we were not part of the movement at the time so but then obviously by the time Michael Brown’s death came around then George Floyd death came around you know the whole thing exploded and everybody was embracing it. 00:04:29 INTERVIEWER: So you became aware of it in 2012? When did you become active? 3 NADINE SEILER: Well I am active in Black Lives Matter just by virtue of being black but but to be to be part of the movement itself, I was protesting at the White House since 2018, July of 2018, consistently and we moved inside when Covid Covid happened and then I gingerly came back out in probably April and the Black Lives Matter protests broke out I want to believe like the 28th of May so it actually met me there when protesting Trump so I just moved over and became Black Lives Matter but just by virtue of being there in the epicenter of the protest where people all came to the White House. 00:05:35 INTERVIEWER: And how did that feel to be part of a movement? NADINE SEILER: Oh well again, I I am very black conscious I you know when people like Trayvon Martin died and Tamir Rice died all these people you know it had an impact on me because it could easily be me so that people without necessarily protesting in DC for Tamir Rice or Philando Castile you know I can’t say why or what George Floyd more so than Philando Castile or Terence Crutcher but it happened that everybody came together when George Floyd died and I just moved over so it wasn’t something that I was necessarily saying I want to be part of this particular movement but again just by virtue of being black and knowing that a lot of my fellow black citizens were dying unnecessarily, just for showing up, I had to be there. 00:06:51 INTERVIEWER: And the follow up to the summer protests, what was your first reaction when you saw the security fence being installed around Lafayette Park? NADINE SEILER: Well I mean that Trump was trying to stifle our First Amendment rights you know? I didn’t like the fact that he felt that you know like we were protesting for our lives and that he felt that he he was offended by the fact that we were there in front of his house doing it and that he could shove us out and tell us to go away. I was offended. 00:07:36 INTERVIEWER: And we’ll get into more detail about this but I’m so curious about the moment - when did the security fence change into a memorial fence? NADINE SEILER: So there INTERVIEWER: To you – in your perception? NADINE SEILER: So there were two fences. There was the first fence that was erected I think like probably like June 4th or something along that line that was when the protests first broke out and people were in the park and they first started macing folks. That fence stayed up, I want to believe, I was told they said 17 days I’m not sure it was actually 17 days because it came down on June 9th. I know it came down on June 9th because I was there as part of the people who took down the initial set of protest signs. I was onsite for the as we called it and then the 4 second fence was erected on June 24th when the Black Lives Matter protesters attempted to bring down the Andrew Jackson statue and the fence was put up overnight on the 23rd into the 24th. So this this fence that were are talk that we are talking the first fence was related as a memorial fence but it wasn’t spoken so much because it didn’t exist for that long. So this second fence was there from since the 24th so it became more of a memorial because people were traveling to come and bring their stories and the stories of their families to the fence. 00:09:26 INTERVIEWER: And how did that feel for you to see the context change? NADINE SEILER: Oh oh oh definitely from from going there to protest and just being there and then talking to people and realizing that people were traveling from around the country to come and tell their family’s stories on the fence. It made a difference. It made me that I guess part of knowing that people were traveling to come there made me want to to protect the stuff that was on there or to take care of the stuff that was on there and I think that it what led me to you know picking up the signs I saw that were on the sidewalk because people were people were coming to tell their family’s stories. Because initially, the signs that were on the initially the signs that were on the fence were of the dead but they were put there by activists so we were you know like if somebody had a a a picture of Breonna Taylor or George Floyd or Terence Crutcher there was a sign that somebody probably had in a protest but then it became that people were traveling from from Florida from New York and from Minnesota to come and put their family’s story so it it changed to me it changed the dynamic of it that people from around the country were seeing this fence as a memorial to tell the stories of their families who were killed by the police. 00:11:09 INTERVIEWER: A literal memorial? NADINE SEILER: A literal memorial,yeah. INTERVIEWER: And that happened organically? NADINE SEILER: Yes, it happened totally organically, totally because again, the first set of protest signs were just what protesters were carrying. 00:11:23 INTERVIEWER: And I’m thinking of how a protest sign, how it’s used and you make a protest sign, you bring it to the protest, and then it’s discarded.