People, Locations, Episodes

Wally Nelson, Peace Activist born

Wally Nelson

*Wally Nelson was born on this date in 1909. He was a Black civil rights and peace activist.

Raised in Little Rock, Arkansas, Wallace F. "Wally" Nelson was the son of Lydia (Durand) and Duncan Nelson. During his youth, Nelson and his family were sharecroppers, which was an experience that shaped some of his values. Nelson was a regional Church youth director and attended Ohio Wesleyan University.  As a committed advocate of active nonviolence, he refused to bear arms during World War II. He served in a Civilian Public Service camp and three and a half years in federal prison.

While locked up, he played a major role in ending racial segregation as the authorized policy of the federal prison system. In 1947, he participated in the first interracial "Freedom Ride," traveling by bus through the Southern states to test the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision banning racial segregation in interstate transportation. One year later, he co-founded Peacemakers, a national organization dedicated to active nonviolence as a way of life. He and his wife, Juanita, began their lifelong practice of refusing to pay taxes used for armaments and killing.

During the early 1950s, as the first national field organizer for the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), he directed numerous workshops on nonviolent direct action in Washington, D.C. In 1968, he fasted for 21 days to support the United Farm Workers’ campaign for just wages and working conditions for farm laborers. 1974 he moved to Deerfield (Mass.), where he started an organic vegetable farm. During this time, he and his family were among the founders of the Valley Community Land Trust, Pioneer Valley War Tax Resisters, and the Greenfield Farmers’ Market.

He regularly participated in the annual war-tax protest before the Greenfield Post Office on Tax Day.  Wally Nelson died on May 23, 2002, in Greenfield, Massachusetts, at age 93.