Portraits of Democracy in Action--Maddie Houser Webb
A series...
This column is also posted at Jason Walsmith’s Substack, The Racontourist. Please consider subscribing to The Racontourist. Jason is a member of the celebrated Des Moines band, the Nadas. He’s also a professional photographer. If you value his photos and can afford it, please consider becoming a paid subscriber to The Racontourist or buying him a cup of coffee here.
With “Portraits of Democracy in Action,” Jason and I continue our collaboration, highlighting Iowans from different walks of life.
Jason and I attended the Iowa State Democratic Convention in Des Moines on Saturday, June 13, where we spoke with attendees, and Jason shot photographs. We began our series with interviews and photographs of three members of the Iowa Creator Corp, a new organization, and then we will continue with a few Democrats running for office, and other people at the convention.
Our first interview was with Liz Fleming, aka “Liz from Iowa,” and can be found here. This is the second in the series, and is with Maddie Houser Webb.
I wrote the narrative, and Jason did the photography and photo captions.
Maddie tells us: she is an Iowa-based content creator and storyteller whose content blends advocacy with the everyday moments of her life. From sharing relatable experiences and family travel adventures to interviewing local leaders and highlighting issues that matter, she aims to create content that informs and sparks conversation. She is a member of the Iowa Creator Corps and a Community Change-ChangeWire Fellow.
Maddie, like Liz, is a powerful public intellectual for our age. As legacy media stumbles, people like Maddie, Liz, and other informed, honest, and passionate individuals, including members of the Iowa Creator Corps, are stepping in to provide truthful and timely digital news and commentary to the masses that is, at times, in direct opposition to MAGA media propaganda.
Maddie has over 141,000 followers on TikTok, over 13 million likes, and at least one of her videos has received over one million views. She also has 148,000 followers on Instagram. Does any other public intellectual in Iowa have her reach?
Below is a screenshot of her TikTok page on June 23 to get a sense of her coverage.
As always, please consider listening to the recorded interview below if you can to get a deeper sense of who Maddie is. There is nothing more powerful than the human voice, and there are some beautiful subtleties as to how Maddie speaks that carry meaning well beyond what the mere written word can reflect. The recording is followed by a lightly edited transcript.
Maddie: Interview? Ok, cool.
Me: This is a voice interview.
Maddie: I was like, let me get cute…oh, it’s my voice, dang it…
Jason: You can do that anyway because I’m going to take pictures…
Maddie: Okay. I’m ready.
Jason: I’m going to concentrate on that curl (notice the curl in the photo above. That’s the angle Jason was seeing).
Maddie: Oh, okay, cool. Let’s see if I’m like sweating.
Jason: You’re good.
Me: I’m going to leave that in.
Maddie: Oh. Uh-oh. Everyone, buckle up. It’s about to be a weird interview.
Me: It’s not going to be a weird interview.
Maddie: (looking at Jason) It’s not his fault. It’s me. The weird is me. Bob’s cool.
Me: Thank you. We’re coming up on America’s 250th anniversary celebration.
Maddie: Yeah. Yeah.
Me: What are your thoughts on that?
Maddie: I think it’s mixed feelings. As a Black woman in America, it’s like, “Yay, we’ve been here for 250 years, but what would my life have looked like 250 years ago?” You know? So, it’s kind of a weird… I don’t even know, is it a bittersweet kind of celebration, I think, for me as a Black woman?
I think it’s...I’m so excited to live here, and I love Iowa, and I love this country, but at the same time, it’s weird to celebrate 250 years when, I don’t know, how many of that 180 of it was a little rough for people who look like me. So, I think that’s how I feel about that. I mean, does that answer your question?
Me: Yeah, it answers my question.
Maddie: I’m not used to being on the other side of the interviews.
Me: Well, and it’s also during a time when the contributions of Black Americans, other minorities, the marginalized in any way. It’s their history being erased and…
Maddie: Yeah.
Me: Their rights are being trampled upon.
Maddie: Yeah, I think that’s, it’s hard to celebrate when those two things are happening at the same time, right? So it’s like, it’s kind of that same mentality of…anyway, right now is like, do you focus on the negative things? Do you focus on the positive things? Because if we don’t focus on anything positive, then it’s really hard to exist, right?
But, recognizing things for what they are, and the struggle that I think is that balance to find between celebrating and seeing what’s currently happening to the Black community and what happened back then, but also recognizing that I’m glad that we’ve come so far, but I don’t want to go back, right? I don’t want to go backwards. So, all of those things mixed together…
Me: I’m going… I was going to ask you what gives you hope, but I’m going to say that you on TikTok, Maddie Houser Webb, when I view your TikToks, especially those with your family, you give me hope.
Maddie: Stop. You’re so sweet.
Jason: Great question, Bob. Great question.
Maddie: That is a wonderful question. Stop. That makes me really, really happy. And people like you give me hope because I think in general if someone were to... don’t take this offensively, but if someone were to just meet you, right? They wouldn’t really know where you stand. But the minute you start talking, and you see your work, it’s like, oh, this guy’s on the good side. This guy’s like, you know, not on the dark side. So, it’s, I just think you give me hope by being who you are, right? People like you normally don’t have that same mental process of looking at things and looking at life and the empathy that you have. So I think that’s a win, which they can’t see, but I’m clapping for him. I’m saying amazing.
Me: Well, thank you. I do fit in well at Trump rallies. They don’t question me…
Maddie: You’re not sticking out. That’s what I’m saying. And so that gives me hope, when people like you start to have the beliefs that you have and the outlook on life that you have, I think then that’s giving everyone hope, right? Because we need everybody to feel that way. So…
Me: Thank you.
Maddie: Yeah, of course.
Jason, referring to Maddie’s curl at the beginning of the interview and his saying that he was going to concentrate on it, made me think about the deeper meaning of that curl. So I looked into it.
“Forehead curls…are vital to Black culture because they serve as a medium for artistic expression, honor a century of historical resilience, and directly challenge Eurocentric beauty standards.” From: A Sacred Legacy: On Black Hair And The Revolutionary Power of Self-Expression.
Maddie tells us, “I absolutely love my curls now as an adult, but growing up here in Iowa, I just wanted my hair to be thin and straight like everyone else’s. It was in my adulthood that I realized the beauty and history in my curls…but for me, being a Black woman in a white world, learning to love my hair was a huge part of learning to love myself.”
Maddie’s simple curl is a profound symbol of history, resistance, and love.
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I’m a proud member of the Iowa Writers’ Collaborative. Please check out our recent work here. I also publish Cedar Creek Nature Notes, about Violet the Dog and my adventures on our morning walks at Cedar Bluffs Natural Area in Mahaska County, Iowa.
And I’m now on TikTok as a member of the Iowa Creator Corp, believe it or not. Here you go.
And hey, please consider joining me in September at Lake Okoboji, at Julie Gammack’s wonderful Okoboji Writers and Songwriters Retreat. I’d love to see you there!
 | A guest post by
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Jason, Bob,
Can you ask Maddie to post on other platforms in addition to TikTok. I am on the latter, but for us boomers, genx, others, Instagram may be more accessible, or other social media platforms. When I searched for her on social media or podcasts, I would be directed to a Madi Webb. FYI
Maddie and my Madeline were in preschool together. Her mom and I were Ames High classmates. She is a treasure.