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"collection_name": "Duluth African American Oral History Project (UMD)",
"collection_name_s": "Duluth African American Oral History Project (UMD)",
"collection_description": "The Duluth African American Oral History Project was initiated by the board of Clayton Jackson, McGhie Memorial, Inc. to aid in the documentation of the history of Duluth’s African American community. The funding came from a Legacy Grant from the Minnesota Historical Society. The African American Oral History Project includes interviews designed to document particular aspects of Duluth’s history and/or important local institutions, such as the Institute for Afro-American Awareness, the local branch of NAACP, St. Mark’s African Methodist Episcopal Church, Calvary Baptist Church and the Juneteenth Celebration committee, as well as document African American life more generally. The interviews were conducted between November 2016 and February 2017.
Taken as a group, these interviews were conducted in order to document the many aspects of life in Duluth, particularly as experienced by African Americans. Business people, educators, laborers, commercial seamen, fire fighters, military veterans, civil employees, community activists and other civic leaders of various kinds, as well as regular folks, were interviewed. Some interviews are brief, lasting 60 minutes or less; others are more extensive, lasting up to three or more hours. The interviewees talk about their parents, their upbringing (often outside Duluth), their experiences in school, their careers, and their achievements. They discuss everyday life as well as the big events in the history they lived. The interviewees offer their own perspective on events, and while there are many areas of agreement, there are events that they each remember in their own ways.",
"title": "Interview with Toni Thorstad, Part 1",
"title_s": "Interview with Toni Thorstad, Part 1",
"title_t": "Interview with Toni Thorstad, Part 1",
"title_search": "Interview with Toni Thorstad, Part 1",
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"2016-12-14"
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"date_created_sort": "2016",
"creator": [
"Thorstad, Toni"
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"contributor": [
"Woodward, David",
"Phelps Horton, Rachel",
"Paul, MizJanetta"
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"contributor_ss": [
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"Phelps Horton, Rachel",
"Paul, MizJanetta"
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"notes": "Toni Thorstad was born in Okland, California in 1952 and raised in Kansas City, Kansas. She moved to Duluth in 1970 to flee domestic violence. She joined her biological father in Duluth who had moved here decades earlier. She got her GED in Duluth and then went on to get her Bachelors degree from St. Scholastica in social work and then a Masters Degree in Social Work from the University of Minnesota Duluth. She works as a case manager at the Minnesota Assistant Council for Veterans (MACV) and is the community liaison for Nettleton Elementary School. She worked for the Women’s Coalition as a domestic violence and children’s advocate and ran women’s groups. She has also worked for the Human Development Center and for the St. Louis County Day Care. Ms. Thorstad’s community activities include membership on the YWCA Board, CHUM Board, St. Mary’s Hospital Clinical Pastoral Education Program Advisory Board, She was a founding board member of the Ordean Foundation, Community Action Duluth. She continues to support multiple social justice causes. Ms. Thorstad has two children and seven grand children.",
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"subject": [
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"language": [
"English"
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"city": [
"Duluth"
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"state": [
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"country": [
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"continent": [
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"contributing_organization": "Archives and Special Collections, Kathryn A. Martin Library, University of Minnesota Duluth",
"contributing_organization_name": "Archives and Special Collections, Kathryn A. Martin Library, University of Minnesota Duluth",
"contributing_organization_name_s": "Archives and Special Collections, Kathryn A. Martin Library, University of Minnesota Duluth",
"contact_information": "Archives and Special Collections, Kathryn A. Martin Library, University of Minnesota Duluth. 416 Library Drive University of Minnesota, Duluth, MN 55812; https://lib.d.umn.edu/",
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"UMD_U6213_00026"
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"date_added": "2019-09-23T00:00:00Z",
"date_added_sort": "2019-09-23T00:00:00Z",
"date_modified": "2020-11-23T00:00:00Z",
"transcription": "Duluth African American Oral History Project\nInterview with Toni Thorstad, Part 1\nInterviewers: David Woodward, Rachel Phelps Horton, MizJanetta Paul\nDate: December 14, 2016\nDavid Woodward: [00:00:00] The interview was interrupted by a technical difficulty with the recording device. We pick up with the interview in progress.\nToni Thorstad: [00:00:04] I did not name him after Walter.\nToni Thorstad: [00:00:11] Personally I just, I think Walter's an okay name for somebody else but I couldn't look down at my little precious baby and say, Look at Walter. So he had already been beating me through my entire pregnancy. So when the nurse came in and said, so would you like to see Little Anthony?\n[00:00:41] And he said, what, he says would you like to see Anthony.\n[00:00:48] He goes I don't know who that is. And I was like, oh boy. And I said that's the baby's name. He goes you named my son without me. I said honey as hard as those pains were, yes I did. And while the nurse was gone he was trying to kill me. He tried to smother me with the pillow. But you know it's that whole denial thing. Oh that didn't really happen. If I hadn't done this he would've...I know much better now.\n[00:01:22] But in those days I didn't.\n[00:01:24] And when Anthony was about two and a half months old I had talked about leaving him and so he went and put a shotgun to Anthony's head and told me that if I ever tried to take his child away from him that he would kill me. So I just sat quietly and then all at once he blew out the window above my head just so. My dad was living up here then and I told my dad that I just needed to get away and so I came up to visit and that's when my life started here. And my dad already had Michelle.\n[00:02:19] Michelle had been living up here and then eventually I just kind of got on my own.\nRachel Phelps Horton: [00:02:32] You were able to get away safely, relatively with your son.\nToni Thorstad: [00:02:36] No, no, that was in the days where they kicked in the doors. They didn't have domestic violence laws. If you were married your husband could beat you breakfast, lunch, and dinner because it was for sure something that you said or did to upset him.\n[00:02:57] Yeah.\n[00:03:00] He used break in and cut up on my clothes.\n[00:03:03] Oh yeah. How are you doing?\nMizJanetta Paul: [00:03:08] I'm OK.\nRachel Phelps Horton: [00:03:10] So then I guess what was your escape.... Did you just come up and visit your dad and just stay there? And then with your Dad then and didn't come back or did Walter follow you at all...\nToni Thorstad: [00:03:22] We came up here together.\nRachel Phelps Horton: [00:03:24] Oh you and Walter.\nToni Thorstad: [00:03:25] We came up here together and it was like you know, you know you're both young if you could get away from your families maybe you'll do better.\n[00:03:35] And you know things will be all right.\n[00:03:38] No it just got worse because being from southern states when he came up here and you could date white girls without being killed he just went berserk. And so we eventually got a divorce. He'd still break in my house you know.\nRachel Phelps Horton: [00:04:06] So you were like separated first and then he was off doing his thing, left you be.\nToni Thorstad: [00:04:13] Yeah. And the thing that was quite amazing is that I was, when I got up here. I was too young to be married and too young to get a divorce.\nRachel Phelps Horton: [00:04:32] So how old were you? What year did you move up to Duluth?\nToni Thorstad: [00:04:37] In 1970. I was 17.\nRachel Phelps Horton: [00:04:42] Oh the same year your son was born, OK.\nToni Thorstad: [00:04:49] And then I had Anthony, I was 17, I was divorced when I was 18.\nMizJanetta Paul: [00:05:04] What do you mean you were too young to be married?\nToni Thorstad: [00:05:04] You had to be 21 years old to be married or in order for me to get married, my mom and my dad had to sign for me to get married.\n[00:05:20] So then when I came up here. It's called a guardian ad litem which is someone who takes care of the child. They speak for the child. They look out for the child.\n[00:05:36] So my attorney David Bushar was my guardian ad litem and he helped me get my divorce.\nDavid Woodward: [00:05:51] It’s sort of rigged against the female, wouldn't you say, in a big way.\nToni Thorstad: [00:05:54] It was really bad because then after I got my divorce and I didn't have skills so I went on welfare and Michelle and Anthony and I were getting two hundred and two dollars a month to live on.\n[00:06:17] And we were just talking about that at work today about how crazy that was how I spent $20 and we had to eat eggs and hot dogs.\nRachel Phelps Horton: [00:06:32] Beans and rice.\nToni Thorstad: [00:06:33] Yeah, because it was like, oh I just blew the budget. I mean that was like a week, we didn't have groceries.\nRachel Phelps Horton: [00:06:39] Did they have WIC back then? The children program or anything.\nToni Thorstad: [00:06:44] No.\nRachel Phelps Horton: [00:06:44] Oh I'm not familiar with that.\nToni Thorstad: [00:06:46] They had food stamps. OK.\n[00:06:50] So I got more food stamps but you have to understand I was raised middle class to upper middle class.\n[00:07:02] Both my parents worked. They've always had a job. I couldn't tell you where the welfare department is. Don't know anything about that kind of life when I was coming up. I come up here, people automatically assume that I know what welfare is.\n[00:07:20] And so I ...food stamps used to come in little booklets like Monopoly money. I had no clue what that was. So when I went to the store I used tens, twenties, ones like everybody else. You go to the welfare it was like a cattle call. You know you just put your money up and they go next, next... and they'd give you this stack of books. I didn't know what they were for six months.\n[00:07:55] I borrowed money. I borrowed money from my dad.\n[00:08:04] And my dad says to me what are you doing with all those food stamps. What are food stamps? He goes Toni I'm going to take you down there. So and the other part is that, I don't know my streets and stuff, but the welfare department used to be on, almost on Mesaba Avenue and 3rd Street... no, 2nd Street. It was right there where that parking ramp is now. And it sat down a little ways. And so you wound all the way around even in the cold like it is today, standing outside to get your food stamps. So my dad waited in the car and took me down there and I went in and, it's true, I came out with a big old stack of these things. And my dad said now we can go shopping. I said with what?\n[00:09:08] He looks at me and he goes, \"Tony where are the other ones like this?\" \"These?\" I said, he goes, yea, \"Where are they?\"\n[00:09:27] I said, \"In the drawer in the kitchen.\" So I had like six, eight months of food stamps. My dad was so funny. He said, oh you going to pay me my money back. We are going to go shopping. That was one of the best experiences I've ever had, because... extremely naive,\n[00:09:54] I've always been to a point.\n[00:09:58] So I go in and my dad says to me, \"Now this is how this is going to go.\" He says, \"you see all these white people in here\", I says, \"Yeah.\" \"Because they're not going to be happy that you are, that you have food stamps and they believe that you took that money right out of their pockets and that you are lazy and worthless and you just don't want to work.\" I said, \"That's not true.\" He goes, \"I know I know I know I know.\" So we're doing this in the middle of the grocery store in one of the aisles. He says, \"Sweetheart I don't care if you have food stamps if you see something you want you buy it.\" I said, well why wouldn't I?\" He goes, \"because people don't think you should eat steak. They think you should eat cheap hamburger.\" \"I don't eat cheap hamburger.\" \"I know that, they don't know that, they don't know you.\" Oh. So he says... my favorite steak is a porterhouse steak. And in those days they must have grew the cows really big because you know a porterhouse would just literally fall off your plate, it was so big. [00:11:14] So my dad, and I like rib-eyes.\n[00:11:18] So my dad and I bought steaks, we bought whatever we wanted and then... I'm just like a kid.\n[00:11:28] Now you have to remember I am probably about 18 at this time and I'm just kind of going along and all at once there was this woman who was checking us out.\n[00:11:50] Oh I know what it was, there was a woman in front of me. And then there was a woman and I was putting my stuff up and she goes, \"oh girl look at her, who does she think she is?\"\n[00:12:02] \"So that's why our taxes are so high and that is why this is this and this.\" My dad is coming over there to the side.\n[00:12:11] Now one of the things I have is a very bad temper.\n[00:12:16] And I swear like a sailor except my dad went to his grave hearing me swear twice and my mother never heard me swear in her life.\n[00:12:29] So this woman is and I said, \"are you talking about me?\" and she goes, \"ah, well, no.\" And I said Oh.\n[00:12:43] So this woman is getting her groceries bagged up and mine comes along and there's this stack of steaks, all this and she goes, \"Even I can't afford to eat like this and I can't believe this.\" Because then I whip out my food stamps and my dad comes a little closer because I... to me it's like Monopoly money.\n[00:13:04] I have no idea of how to use this. So I hand them to her and she goes, \"Can't you count?\" And I was like, \"What did you say?\"\n[00:13:20] And so I said something like I will slap the taste out of your mouth or something.\n[00:13:27] And my dad comes a little closer and... and I just took a deep breath. I said, \"Dad is this like money? like fives, tens?\"\n[00:13:42] He goes yeah.\n[00:13:47] And I looked at this woman and I said, you know I didn't grow up on welfare.\n[00:13:52] I don't have anything against anybody who did. But this is not how I know how to live and this is only going to be temporary. I will pay back everything I get from welfare and then some. But you don't get to talk to me any kind of way. I will snatch you right out of your underwear.\n[00:14:11] My dad gets closer and I said, \"It's called respect. You need to respect. If you don't like the fact that I'm using food stamps you need to step back and find me somebody else who's willing to wait on me and I'm not willing to put up with your stuff anymore. And you better be glad my dad is standing here because I would be doing time.\" It's like, \"Yeah that's true miss.\"\n[00:14:36] So I get through that experience and you know it's been those kind of biases. Like even when I went on welfare at that time it was how many children do you have and how many different, different fathers do they have. How many? I mean don't you think two is enough? I mean you know it's just this whole perception.\n[00:15:01] I mean it was, it was really good fertilizer to help me learn how to get on my feet and find my own voice. Because.\n[00:15:12] Yeah.\nDavid Woodward: [00:15:14] When you first came up here what was your impressions of Duluth? It's a predominantly white community then as it is now. How did that, did you have any culture shock, did you struggle to find a place, being an African-American woman at all or no?\nToni Thorstad: [00:15:29] Oh Lord yes. Yes. And you know for me, I was raised in a small town even though Kansas City, my grandmother had that kind of a small town mentality where she kept her family close. And so we didn't have to.... you know we have here in Duluth we have a 1st Street and in Kansas we had a 5th Street, but there was... there was a whole difference. You know my school was like three blocks away up the hill. You had to go along 5th Street. No one touched you. No one did any cat calls. No one disrespected you. That was part of the community watch.\nDavid Woodward: [00:16:12] Sort of a village within a city.\nToni Thorstad: [00:16:14] Yeah, so I always felt safe and protected... when I came up here I thought what in the world. I mean I couldn't even imagine someplace like this. I have never been so scared of any place because this is the only... this was the first place I left.\n[00:16:31] And I've only lived here in Duluth other than living in Kansas or in Missouri. It was... it was a shell shock. I mean people up here would call you a nigger. They, you know, wouldn't wait on you. They you know... I'm like, oh no. And so what happened for me is that I went from being really shy and bashful and basically I spent a lot of time being scared. You know I felt like I raised my children being afraid all the time, either because someone's going to do something to me but more that I was going to do something, because I didn't really have a mentor at that time other than my dad to help me navigate the world. So and then eventually you know, years down the line, my dad eventually went back to Kansas and left me up here and he did it in the middle of the night because I know he knows that he couldn't have told me and my dad was an excellent cook. My parents could cook. Oh my God we used to have seafood boils like gumbo. Like once a month people would come over and there'd be these huge pots of shrimp and crab.\n[00:17:58] Oh, I sure miss my family and my dad had made some gumbo and well, at least he told me he was going to make some gumbo and so I called him and there was no answer.\n[00:18:14] And then he called me and told me that he was in Kansas.\n[00:18:19] I thought I was going to die. Had never been, I had never been alone.\n[00:18:26] I had never been alone before.\nDavid Woodward: [00:18:28] And when he came up here he worked for US Steel, was it?\nToni Thorstad: [00:18:33] He worked in WDIO. The first time he found this place was when he was in the service.\nDavid Woodward: [00:18:42] So how long did he live here with you before he moved back?\nToni Thorstad: [00:18:48] Not live with me. We lived in our own places.\n[00:18:54] Well maybe five, six years isn't a really long time.\n[00:19:01] But enough for your kids, to get you know, have grandpa there with them? And that was a pretty emotional transition, I would imagine.\n[00:19:09] Oh it was awful. But you know I learned how to, I learned how to pick my battles.\nRachel Phelps Horton: [00:19:18] With your grandma still in the picture?\nToni Thorstad: [00:19:21] All my family was in Kansas. I didn't have any family.\nRachel Phelps Horton: [00:19:25] So Grandma Adi.\nToni Thorstad: [00:19:25] Yeah, all my family lived in Kansas and Missouri and I was the only one that's ever left home.\nRachel Phelps Horton: [00:19:35] Oh I see.\nToni Thorstad: [00:19:36] I'm still gone.\nRachel Phelps Horton: [00:19:37] So you were truly alone now.\nToni Thorstad: [00:19:38] I was yeah, I was all alone. No family other than my children.\nRachel Phelps Horton: [00:19:42] His reason for leaving was for work?\nToni Thorstad: [00:19:46] I think my grandmother was getting older and he had had some issues of his own in his own personal life and so he decided that he needed to leave.\n[00:19:59] And so he left and I was just like... So yeah I didn't come out of the house for a long time.\nDavid Woodward: [00:20:10] And the community here, you know with the Calvary Baptist, St. Marks, organizations like that, you didn't really engage with them at that.\nToni Thorstad: [00:20:23] You know, no I didn't really.\n[00:20:27] Because you know, well I might as well stick my foot in my mouth. You know the thing is, is that not all Black folks like each other. And the thing that was amazing to me, being an outsider because there were pockets of families who lived here, who knew each other and it was pretty hard to break into those pockets. I was younger than most of their children. The older African-Americans who are probably my age you know, in their 30s and stuff, I didn't.. I've never had that drinking, partying kind of run and chasing, that's never been part of my life. And so when you don't drink, you don't get high people consider you pretty boring. And my kids were my world.\n[00:21:41] And then eventually a couple of... I found a small group of women that I did eventually go out with because I like to dance and I used to go out and dance and I would dance sober.\n[00:21:56] I still had the bad temper. So you couldn't call me a bitch, couldn't do that.\n[00:22:05] So it was I just never fit in. I haven't fit in anywhere since I came to Duluth I was too, I am too white for Black people.\nDavid Woodward: [00:22:19] In what ways?\nToni Thorstad: [00:22:22] The way I talk, my mannerisms. I've never been one for slang.\nMizJanetta Paul: [00:22:32] Was it because the way you dress also?\nToni Thorstad: [00:22:36] The way I dress. My parents didn't bring me up like that.\n[00:22:44] I consider myself very spiritual. I remember there was one time when I felt like I was having this calling to be a priest and I said, \"Wake up, you can't be a priest you swear like a sailor.\"\n[00:23:03] And so one of the priests said to me, \"Do you think Jesus was just like, oh you're selling and my dad's house that's not nice you shouldn't do that. Did you see the tables flying did you?\"\n[00:23:21] I think Jesus had a temper. Oh yes. Never mind I said, \"I'm still not going to become a priest.\"\n[00:23:28] And so I've always and maybe it's probably a personal thing. I don't think it's so much that the Black community didn't accept me.\n[00:23:41] I think it was probably on both. I didn't accept them and they didn't accept me. Because I'm sorry, our values were like this big. I mean they were just different.\nRachel Phelps Horton: [00:23:50] You didn't feel like the churches were preaching appropriately according to how you were used to? Like when... Because I feel like the Black community was very involved around their churches. And as we've heard previously, and so being so spiritual did you not find that there was a church you were able to fit into?\nToni Thorstad: [00:24:09] Not yet.\nRachel Phelps Horton: [00:24:09] Or that the main Black churches were not like your style.\nToni Thorstad: [00:24:16] Well I grew up, I mean I grew up with St. Marks and the Calvary. I did, you know I understand that. I mean Reverend Witherspoon, loved his church, loved his preaching.\n[00:24:31] But people did not walk their talk. For me, for me and as I get older in this community and I have found my own power in my own voice. I just stay away. I just come and I skirt on the outside. You seldom see me with anything because I don't, I don't do that.\n[00:25:00] I mean, if I don't talk to you a lot while you're living... I'm not coming to your funeral. Do you know what I mean?\n[00:25:10] And you know I feel bad about Sylvester Tucker who just died. Just had his celebration on Sunday. And I didn't go because I was doing something else.\nRachel Phelps Horton: [00:25:25] Who is Sylvester Tucker?\nToni Thorstad: [00:25:28] He was an African-American gentleman who was a Black teacher, an excellent teacher... [00:25:43] But the system beat him down and that's about as much as I want to say about that.\n[00:25:47] I mean it's just... it's one of those things where...\n[00:25:53] I know just enough to make me dangerous and I choose to keep my mouth closed because it's like, what good is it going to do? I'm not going to be like that bully that comes along, where you're sitting on the beach and kick sand in your face and laugh. But you know he was a good man. He was a good man and but he.... I just watched the system beat him down and he ended up being a homeless street guy. But when you see his obituary in the paper he was a damn good looking guy.\n[00:26:34] And my son just loved him.\n[00:26:37] I can't remember if he was English or Math, but Anthony really liked him.\n[00:26:44] He thought he was a really good teacher and one day when Anthony became an adult he saw this guy and I said Anthony do you know who that is.\n[00:26:55] No. So, that's your teacher... \"That's Mr. Tucker?\"\n[00:27:06] So when you had mentioned that you had to see somebody who had a family member that passed then I thought well that won't take... that's...doesn't take long to figure that out here in Duluth. And then I thought no it couldn't be. Then I got a phone call and said you know so yeah. I mean it's not an easy puddle to navigate up here.\nDavid Woodward: [00:27:39] And we are learning from... through our interviews those family groups that are pretty, you know the Witherspoons and the Bouies and the Camerons, there's like five or six families. And they're here long term and they sort of socialize with each other through the airbase and through US Steel, and if you don't belong to that I can see where maybe that could be hard to break in.\nToni Thorstad: [00:28:00] Yeah.\n[00:28:01] Well you know it's just... it was different for me.\nRachel Phelps Horton: [00:28:04] So like where did you live in your first neighborhood when you got here? And was that a positive experience or a negative experience for you?\nToni Thorstad: [00:28:12] It was negative.\nRachel Phelps Horton: [00:28:13] In what neighborhood was that?\nRachel Phelps Horton: [00:28:14] I lived in, it was called the projects.\nToni Thorstad: [00:28:20] It was, the name of the place was Harborview but it was, everybody knew it as the projects... it was where the military families lived.\n[00:28:30] And if you didn't have any money, that's where you lived.\nDavid Woodward: [00:28:33] Was it on the corner of Mesaba and Central Entrance?\nToni Thorstad: [00:28:39] Yep.\nDavid Woodward: [00:28:39] And so those original brown projects, were they built at that point then?\nToni Thorstad: [00:28:44] They were built for the military from what I understand.\n[00:28:48] And then they started to let other people come.\n[00:28:53] When I lived at Harborview, or when I lived in the projects... the Methodist Church...\n[00:29:04] The Copper Top...\n[00:29:06] Had had its new roof...\n[00:29:10] And I remember saying to a minister,\n[00:29:14] I never saw y'all come over and talk to us. You never were there. But I said it was amazing to sit and watch the light go out on your church. You call it patina. And I just call it inclusion. And they were like... Because you know, it was just you know... It was, it was really hard. Duluth still is. It's easier for me, because I'm older and I have a whole different attitude and I have a different power base than I had when I first came.\nDavid Woodward: [00:29:52] Do you feel that, you know, Duluth as the community is sort of a living breathing thing in a sense. You came up here and there's a different context, if you would have stayed in in Kansas City...\n[00:30:03] Would that have been a viable option? I know you were in that cycle of abuse...\nToni Thorstad: [00:30:08] I think that I would have been another statistic. I think I would have had a house full of kids. I think I would have had a dead end job.\n[00:30:21] I would have never gotten my college education and never dealt with any of my issues.\nDavid Woodward: [00:30:30] So there was that, even though it was hard and cold, literally and socially, and you know physically, there was some sense of cleansing maybe or something about Duluth that allowed you to grow.\nToni Thorstad: [00:30:43] I think that my feeling basically is if you can make it Duluth you can probably make it anywhere. I think for sure, for me, I made a decision. I consciously made a decision to get off welfare, to make sure that both my children walked across the stage. I worked two and three jobs to get off welfare and to get out of the projects because that's not what I wanted my kids to see. I didn't want my kids to see generation after generation on welfare and up until they tore that place down, that's exactly how it was. Because some of the same people that I met when I came here... they're kids, kids were on welfare. I was like oh no.\n[00:31:39] And I went from paying thirteen dollars a month to like $200 a month. So you know I missed a lot of my kids' childhood from working. And I made a lot of mistakes in my own personal life but it was like, well you know...\nRachel Phelps Horton: [00:32:00] It's kind of like the duty takes over everything else, kind of just to survive and be on your own and not be a statistic like you said. Toni Thorstad: [00:32:10] I wanted to go back to Kansas, but my children, my daughter's Deaf.\n[00:32:16] And so Michelle had put down roots because they're two and a half years apart. And the next thing I know, by the time I think I got Michelle going and maybe we can get out of here. Anthony's put down roots and it was like, no I'm not going to have my kids bouncing back and forth, they need a stable...\nDavid Woodward: [00:32:34] If you could maybe talk a little bit about, you put both your kids through school here.\n[00:32:39] So that's a big part of any community is the school system. How is that experience, especially with a hearing impaired student going through the system? Did you feel that the system was adequate for your needs and what have you, that kind of thing?\nToni Thorstad: [00:32:57] With Michelle being Deaf... the whole reason I ended up coming up here with Michelle...\n[00:33:03] Michelle had already moved up here with my dad, and dad thought, you know, I could get my life together, pull things together and then I ended up getting pregnant and getting married and then dad said you know come north.\n[00:33:24] So being a teenage mom with two children just set you up for all the stereotypes.\n[00:33:35] So you remember the whole welfare thing and now we've got a teenage mom and she's Black and she's using up our resources.\n[00:33:44] I went to school with Michelle one day and, I can't think of her name, but she said those parents, who had to be in their 20s, 30s... this is why we have Deaf kids, children having children. I'm like, OK, OK... I'll just wait for my ride home. And it took a court order to get me to take Michelle back to school. So they took me to court you know. And I tell you, I've just been blessed because I've had mentors wherever I've gone. Because when I went to court it was like 30, 40 below.\n[00:34:36] The weather we have now is nothing what we had in the 70s and 80s. Nothing. And you have to stand outside. Well I was from Kansas City, We didn't have snowmobile suits. So I go outside and it's cold. And at one point I'm holding, I'm getting Michelle on the bus and the next thing I know I wake up in the hospital and it was like. Where am I. Well I slipped and fell and I hit my head. And they, but they said I had a death grip on Anthony so they couldn't get him out of my arms. And so I was like no I'm not doing this no more. I am not standing outside in subzero weather to put my children, to put my daughter to school.\n[00:35:26] So they sent me back to court and the judge says well... Yeah I was still newly up here. And the judge said, \"Why won't you take your kids to school.\" I said, your honor, \"Can we just talk, like have a conversation.\" He said yes.\n[00:35:49] I said, \"Your kids stand outside when it's 30 and 40 below zero. Or do you or your wife drive them to school?\"\n[00:35:58] He goes, \"Well well...\"\n[00:36:00] I said, \"Exactly. My daughter is 4...\" no she was three. [00:36:08] And I said, \"and you want me in good faith to stand outside in weather with snowdrifts bigger than she is in subzero weather.\"\n[00:36:22] He goes, \"Well where are you from?\"\n[00:36:24] I said Kansas.\n[00:36:28] He said, \"Why hasn't anybody helped you with coats and that kind of stuff.\" And I said, \"No, no one's really done anything for me other than give me a hard, hard time, call me a nigger and tell me how I'm taking food off their plates and why their taxes are high.\" The judge is just like, \"What!\"\n[00:36:47] And I said, \"Yeah, that's like welcome to Duluth.\"\n[00:36:51] He goes, \"Oh no, no, no, who brought this case?\" And it was you know the social worker. And I said, \"And that woman your honor. She looks under my bed, in my refrigerator, in my closet, and tells me that she knows I have a man hidden.\" I said, \"I have a Deaf daughter and a little one. Where would I ever find time for any man? Don't you think I've got enough issues?\" This judge is like... I said, \"I do not like her and she's not respectful. And what she does behind my closed doors and what she's saying here is totally different.\"\n[00:37:32] He goes, \"Ok, you are off her case. Do you want anything to do with her?\"\n[00:37:39] \"No.\"\n[00:37:40] \"You are never to call her again. You, you're the supervisor here.\" Yes. \"You will help her get herself ready for winter and help her get anything she needs. And don't bring her to my court again.\" So yeah.\n[00:37:59] So it was slowly but surely I knew my voice.\nDavid Woodward: [00:38:03] And your voice was the tool you used? Yeah, self-determination.\nToni Thorstad: [00:38:09] And my sense of humor or I'd be in jail. Which is still the case.\n[00:38:16] Yeah, yeah I think one of the things though overall that's made me successful in Duluth right up to this day is learning how to be my own best friend. I mean it's taken me a long time to not care what other people think. I mean I've cried myself to sleep a many a night because people didn't say, oh good job Toni or good job, Toni. So you know it's been it's been really difficult and lonely.\nRachel Phelps Horton: [00:38:58] So expanding on that as you grew older in Duluth and overcame these things and your children grew older and you began to attend college. How did that come about you finishing your education and then working a stable job for the county that you worked with? Or just overcoming those things as an African-American woman getting a higher education?\n[00:39:26] Having the... you know, foundation that you've had?\nToni Thorstad: [00:39:31] Well I think that education has always been an important part of my life. My grandmother believed that when you went to school you can spell your name forward and backwards, you could identify your letters, you knew your numbers... I don't know why she sent us to school because by the time we got there our teachers did not like us because we know how to hold our pencil, we knew what to do.\n[00:39:57] So I believe the reason I ended up getting my education, it's always been a spiritual piece with me. It's, it's kind of like a second sense. And Bob Brenning was a professor up at Scholastica. He was wonderful. He used to bug me unmercifully and he would say to me you're going to go to college. Like no I'm too dumb to go to college. You know I know just enough to make me dangerous... he goes, No you're going to go to college. And so one day.\nRachel Phelps Horton: [00:40:37] Were you working there at that time?\nToni Thorstad: [00:40:39] No. I was working, where was I working? I was working for the county daycare centers. And for the county day care centers I worked myself from volunteer up to supervisor. But by then I had been on lots of boards you know. You know, the first Black, you know. And then I went to an undoing racism training because it's always important for me to understand why I do what I do.\n[00:41:15] And so when I found out what, you know what tokenism was and you know that it wasn't such a good thing that I was the only Black on the board and I was like, I remember somebody calling me a gatekeeper. I was ready to do damage then I was like, \"What!\".\n[00:41:35] And then I shut my mouth and opened my eyes and I started listening. And one of the things that I do whenever I'm at a meeting is that I always put my head down and I always doodle. I do Zentangle now but I just kinda... And but I'm always listening because sometimes, yeah because sometimes, if I look at people I know that I have a certain look and it'll just kind of stop a conversation. Because I can't play poker anymore because everything shows on my face. Now. You know when I hit 30 it was like whoa, I'm not taking no more stuff off nobody, not even my parents. So you know I just became this force. And so now I just kind of keep my head down and hope. But one of the things that happened is that with education, if you get out of your own way, you can learn a lot.\n[00:42:39] And so yeah, I don't like being called a gatekeeper but I wanted to know what a gatekeeper was and where did it come from and how did it develop and who got to name it a gate keeper. And so I started venturing out a little more with other African-Americans. Who weren't in this community. And I just started to grow and do things. So it's just not exciting.\nRachel Phelps Horton: [00:43:06] When you said, not with this community, what community do you mean?\nToni Thorstad: [00:43:09] The community of Duluth.\nRachel Phelps Horton: [00:43:11] You started venturing out with members of this community?\nToni Thorstad: [00:43:14] Outside of this community.\nRachel Phelps Horton: [00:43:16] Outside, meaning outside Duluth.\nToni Thorstad: [00:43:20] With other African-Americans who were not from Duluth, who didn't know me, who didn't judge me.\nRachel Phelps Horton: [00:43:26] Like in surrounding areas like Hermantown or like Esko? I'm just trying to clarify like how far. Toni Thorstad: [00:43:34] Chicago, Mississippi, Alabama. People who were not from here.\n[00:43:45] And one of the things is, my favorite story is the ugly duckling.\n[00:43:54] It's my absolute favorite story because that's how I feel in this town most of the time is like the ugly duckling. And there's a part in the story where the other Swans encourage the ugly duckling to move its wings from her face and then look at the reflection in the water and it was like, oh I guess I'm not so ugly after all.\n[00:44:28] But you know if it takes a long time it took a long time for me to remove my old wounds to be able to look and don't get me wrong. I have some....\n[00:44:40] Everybody and their great grandmother knows me in this town but not everybody has a relationship with me. Not many people here know me. The only one that would probably come be closest to knowing me would be Portia Johnson. And she was just a really... she still is a good mentor and a good friend. I don't see anybody very often. But she was the one that taught me when Michelle was little how to have patience to help Michelle put on her socks because I was going to just rip Michelle's little lips off, because OH...\n[00:45:22] So you know Portia has... Portia's part of that foundation, but there aren't very many people here who can say that.\nRachel Phelps Horton: [00:45:33] OK. And so kind of going back to you becoming more... having more self-confidence to attend college and with the Bob Brenning encouragement... You then decided that you wanted to pursue social work...\nToni Thorstad: [00:45:49] No.\nRachel Phelps Horton: [00:45:51] How did you know about what you wanted to do?\nToni Thorstad: [00:45:54] That was Bob's idea.\n[00:45:55] I mean personally I don't like social workers, have never liked social workers, and that's why I always say that God has a wicked sense of humor because you know I became the very thing that I despised.\nDavid Woodward: [00:46:11] Yeah, you had bad experiences with them.\nToni Thorstad: [00:46:13] Yeah. And it was like I don't want to be like those people and so if you go to college and you're going to end up being like that and it's like oh no it's not like that...\n[00:46:23] Oh.\n[00:46:23] And so probably in the last few years I've taking more pride in being a social worker.\nRachel Phelps Horton: [00:46:33] What did you study then at Scholastica?\nToni Thorstad: [00:46:35] Social work.\nRachel Phelps Horton: [00:46:37] You did, somehow you came around to it. Was it more like you don't want other people to have experiences like I've had? So I want to help them in ways that I wasn't being helped.\nToni Thorstad: [00:46:49] Mmmhmmm. And you know you got to know when you take classes and stuff. When I was sitting there and there would be these people and they would talk like this you know, \"My mother did this\". And I said, well did you know that your mom gets a tax break for that and that you didn't pay any taxes on that. That's why you can live in Eden Prairie you know. And they were like, \"That's not true.\" Go ask your mama. She might not want to tell you she's not paying taxes but...\nDavid Woodward: [00:47:14] And the insight you got from actually being under the thumb of a social worker must have been great for taking the classes and discussion groups and maybe put a few of those Eden Prairie women who might have...\nToni Thorstad: [00:47:26] Not necessarily... because you know when you're in the institution you have to go along with your professors.\n[00:47:34] If your professor has a strong opinion you want to pass the class you need to go along.\nRachel Phelps Horton: [00:47:40] And so you were taught by the nuns at Scholastica, you mean.\nToni Thorstad: [00:47:43] I had some nuns, yeah. But the nuns were more liberal than some of the professors.\n[00:47:51] But for instance I took this life expansion course. Now me and my experience being an African-American in my little, little box here, the parents are not the most important to the child. It's the grandparents it's the extended... it's not the mom, it's not the dad... because they can't get across street by themselves. So when we take this child development class you know, and turn the pages and it says the parents are.... And so when I wrote a paper or said something out loud in class. She goes, \"Well that's not it at all.\"\n[00:48:32] See I didn't know then and then I said, \"Well that's not true. Maybe in your community, at your house but it's not like that at mine.\"\n[00:48:39] She goes, \"No it is. This is how it is.\" Now I am older than all the students and the teacher. So then...\nRachel Phelps Horton: [00:48:48] So sorry. What year did you go to Scholastica? What years did you start?\nToni Thorstad: [00:48:55] 'O3, and without thinking I said, \"Think white, you want to pass this class, think white.\"\n[00:49:04] She was so upset, she was beet red and I was like, \"Wow I haven't seen that for a while.\" And she goes, \"I need to talk to you after class\". I said, \"OK\". And so she said, \"That was very rude what you said\". And I said, \"Uh, no it's the truth.\" I just probably shouldn't have said it out loud.\n[00:49:27] But here's the deal.\n[00:49:30] I know what happens in my community. I don't care what this book says but you know in order to pass your class I need to go along and do what the book says and I'm willing to do that.\n[00:49:42] And so there's a game here that we need to play and I'm willing to play it. But I'm not....maybe I need more tact. But you know.\nDavid Woodward: [00:49:54] Yeah, you know that's that ethnocentric view. I mean the nuclear family, a very middle class white idea of what a family is compared to an African-American family or in my case the Mexican, Mexican-American families, that, you know, it's different.\nToni Thorstad: [00:50:08] Yeah I got a better, because I had to leave because it was just not the best experience at first so I had to take a semester off to get myself together and then I came back and I was a good girl. But I still told it like it was.\nRachel Phelps Horton: [00:50:24] So overall would you say your experience was positive or negative at Scholastica?\nToni Thorstad: [00:50:28] It was good. It was positive. It was positive. And again I thought I had incredible nuns that surrounded me and faculty. And so yeah it was... it was a really good experience.\nRachel Phelps Horton: [00:50:46] Helpful...\nToni Thorstad: [00:50:48] I had people who believed in me more than I believed in me.\nRachel Phelps Horton: [00:50:51] That's good. That's a good feeling, support.\n[00:50:55] So then after pursuing that how did you come upon your masters? Did you work for a while after you graduated? And what were your feelings about the Duluth community? Still the same as you pursued your career and that your children were older? And I guess I'm asking like how did your involvement come about?\nToni Thorstad: [00:51:18] I'm pretty much the same. I'm more tactful.\n[00:51:24] My mother died while I was going for my B.A. and I had taken time off. I lost my job and I decided that I would not get that much time off again. And I was doing, I was traveling. I was doing workshops. I was, you know, traveling across the country and so I decided to give that up and just concentrate on my schooling and then try to heal from my mother's death.\nRachel Phelps Horton: [00:52:04] And what kinds of like workshops and traveling? Is this where you mentioned you met lots of other African-Americans from other communities during this time?\nToni Thorstad: [00:52:13] Yeah, Well I was going through the Undoing Racism training and was thinking seriously about learning the skills so I could travel with them because they travel all over the world.\n[00:52:30] And so I was doing that and then I had developed workshops on bullying behavior.\nRachel Phelps Horton: [00:52:43] Was this something like the community housing or the Washington Center? Or was this like your own self-perpetuating? I'm going to teach people and I'm going to learn how to.\nToni Thorstad: [00:52:55] Well I was working in the school district.\n[00:52:59] And at that... I was working with battered women and then I noticed how women....\nRachel Phelps Horton: [00:53:06] PAVSA, that's what I was trying to think of.\nToni Thorstad: [00:53:08] No not PAVSA, at that time. it was called the Women's Coalition. I notice how women and their children interacted.\n[00:53:19] And when the abuser wasn't there, then the kids took over and then they abuse mom it was like, what!\n[00:53:26] So then I started asking women you know, when do you first remember violence and it was always on the playground. And when I did men's groups it was like when did you remember? Oh yeah in the alleys or at games or on the playground and so I developed workshops on bullying behavior and I traveled to Germany and Hawaii, Arizona Mississippi so and then I used to do them here in Duluth.\nRachel Phelps Horton: [00:54:14] And so were they received pretty well? Was the school board helpful in helping you to develop these or how does has that relationship been?\nToni Thorstad: [00:54:26] Well it's really weird.\n[00:54:29] The programs that they have in the school now is some of the same work that I did when there were like three or four of us that worked together to help develop some programs for the Duluth schools.\n[00:54:48] OK, so it was a pretty responsive relationship. And then it became the in thing, bullying became the in thing.\n[00:54:57] And so then everybody was talking about bullying and everybody was so, yeah.\nRachel Phelps Horton: [00:55:02] OK. So do you remember attending a lot of meetings with Portia? For school board stuff or were you involved with the Portia Johnson Drive or anything like that? Saving schools?\nDavid Woodward: [00:55:16] I think in the 90s with the bullying thing, you had a number of high profile cases where the violence was... Columbine originally was blamed on that and there was a couple others...\nToni Thorstad: [00:55:26] Yes, and then I can't think of her name just here in Central High School when they were writing her name on the bathroom walls, Katie something.\nDavid Woodward: [00:55:36] But yeah and then they had that, in Central they also had racial issues with, what do they call that? West End Whiteys.\nToni Thorstad: [00:55:43] Yes.\nRachel Phelps Horton: [00:55:44] The Carhartt kids.\nToni Thorstad: [00:55:46] Yes.\nDavid Woodward: [00:55:46] That was all late 90s right at that time when bullying became a thing.\nToni Thorstad: [00:55:51] And that was going on when you know Anthony was in school, was going on and Portia's kids were in school. So yeah.\nRachel Phelps Horton: [00:55:59] And how did you react, how did that influence your family life?\nToni Thorstad: [00:56:04] I taught my kids skills.\nDavid Woodward: [00:56:08] Did your kids have any issues growing up? And we could interview them too. Did they have any issues growing up in Duluth as being African-American in Duluth?\nToni Thorstad: [00:56:20] I know that Anthony did because he beat up, he got... first he was attacked by three white kids and then when he fought back then the police came to my house and wanted to.... He ended up going to court. And again that's when Judge Martin was the judge. I think he's seen everybody's child that's ever been in Duluth.\n[00:56:58] But what was amazing is that it was they were all about holding Anthony accountable. And I said where were you when Anthony got beat up?\n[00:57:08] And so you know, Anthony wrote a note that said I'm sorry I beat you up as bad as I did. Yeah, I wonder where he got that from? But you know that's, yeah. They had their trials and tribulations. They didn't always bring it home though.\n[00:57:30] And although I was raised to be bigger than the person that called me a nigger. That I should never stoop to their level. My dad said to me and I pass it on to Anthony, if someone calls you a nigger and you beat them till they're... with their dying breath they spit out their teeth and they call you a nigger...\n[00:58:03] What have you accomplished? Nothing.\n[00:58:09] And so Anthony... Anthony would say to me well I decided I'm not going to kill him but I'm going to beat him and he can spit out his teeth and he can live knowing that this Black man kicked his ass... and I said OK, that's a new take on it you know.\n[00:58:32] And so it was, it was about... because everybody's got to find their own way of how they deal with the racial stuff.\n[00:58:39] I've gotten older and mellow. But yeah I used to fight like everybody else and then I got smart.\nDavid Woodward: [00:58:46] My interview with (Stephan) Witherspoon, about the same age as Anthony. He said he fought a lot in the Central Hillside area when people would call him names. Was that the same time period?\nToni Thorstad: [00:59:02] And I'm sure Anthony was out there fighting.\n[00:59:03] There's not a doubt in my mind because I just think that that's a phase that you move through. Or you have a sister that takes care of it for you.\n[00:59:14] But I don't think you escape. You just don't.\nRachel Phelps Horton: [00:59:27] OK so um...\n[00:59:44] [Edited out discussion of logistics concerning equipment] David Woodward: [01:00:18] I mean this could be tiring too.\nRachel Phelps Thorton: [01:00:22] Yeah we can quickly go through some more things and discuss you know your community work on the board or just other places you remember gathering in Duluth or quilting or Kwanza, any holidays that you remember and you were chosen as the Port Cities Woman of the Year.\nToni Thorstad: [01:00:41] Who told you that?\nDavid Woodward: [01:00:42] It's online, remember everything about you is on line.\n[01:00:50] You have a digital footprint out there.\n[01:00:55] And just other things about you know, you said you were sort of on the periphery of the African-American community but not only the African-American community but you engaged over time with non-African-American communities too and you know that kind of thing. Maybe there's quilting groups that you've known about or you know any of those kind of things... more community based stuff and you're a lot like me by the way, I'm not a joiner.\nToni Thorstad: [01:01:20] I'm not. I'm not a joiner, I'm just not.\nDavid Woodward: [01:01:24] I'm interested, but I'm not a joiner.\nToni Thorstad: [01:01:25] Yeah. No, no. You know even when I sit on committees. I'm on the committee and I don't feel like I have one foot, I'm committed while I'm there but I'm not going to be going out and having coffee and you're not....\nRachel Phelps Horton: [01:01:41] And making friends.\nToni Thorstad: [01:01:41] No, no, I've got enough friends.\nRachel Phelps Horton: [01:01:44] I can relate. I bounced back and forth between my mom and dad between Florida and Minnesota so I can relate to that... just I'm going to hang out by myself and watch everybody because I don't need to be involved like that. So I understand you on that one.\nToni Thorstad: [01:02:01] So I think one of the things that I think about all the things that I...",
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