BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION

Rev. Walter McDuffy was born and raised in Chicago, Illinois. After High School, he received a scholarship to North Park College, a two-year private college. Spending a year there, Walter McDuffy was drafted into the service during World War II. He served in the Army Air Corps for a year and a half and then came back to Chicago to finish at North Park. He graduated from Loyola University and also from the Northern Baptist Theological Seminary. After then spending a long career of service in the Air Force, he spent a year as a counselor at Western Illinois University. In August of 1982, he arrived in Moorhead, Minnesota where he was offered a position as Assistant Dean of Students and Director of Multicultural Affairs at Concordia College. He retired from this position in March of 2002, and has been a board member of Cultural Diversity Resources for the last year.

This interview with Rev. Walter McDuffy explores his life and work from his childhood until today. He shares his experiences as a minority in institutions of higher education that were lacking in diversity, as well as his views on race relations in the Fargo-Moorhead community. Other topics discussed include religious diversity and the current state of welfare in this area.

Rev. Walter McDuffy was interviewed on May 3, 2003 by Greg Gilbert, Mackenzie Taylor and Katya Volchkova.

SAMPLES FROM THE INTERVIEW

ON HIS CHILDHOOD:

"usually I went and gathered wood for a wood stove that we had, and usually we went to different stores that had wooden crates and that sort of thing and threw them out. And mostly this was in the white neighborhood that was close by. And I remember a young boy there, saying—I had my wagon with wood and crates and this kind of thing—and he asked me what it was for and I said, “The stove fire at home.” And he says, “Oh, you’re poor aren’t you,” and I said, “No, I’m not poor!” And that was a fascinating thing about it—yes we were poor, but somehow we didn’t think of ourselves as being poor."

ON THE WORK THAT REMAINS:

"I guess my hopes or dreams would be that we might function as a community in which we can accept people—the differences that we find in people—and see that as a positive thing, and something that we need to accept and celebrate, rather than something that is threatening to us, and to our wellbeing. And I think this is what happens to a community, and especially one like here in Fargo-Moorhead, which, when I came was 99.9%, almost, Caucasian, and at least now is about 95%. (laughs) You have a community that is very monolithic."

INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT

LISTEN TO INTERVIEW