Biography
Wallace Floyd Nelson was imprisoned for three and a half years in federal prison as a conscientious objector during World War II, fasting 108 days (with forced tube-feeding) to protest racial segregation of prisoners. Participated in the 1947 Journey of Reconciliation — the first "freedom ride" — and became the first national field organizer for the Congress of Racial Equality. With Juanita he began war tax resistance in 1948; the couple was arrested as the "Elkton Three" for trying to integrate a Maryland restaurant. The Nelsons lived a radically simple life on less than $5,000 a year on a half-acre in Deerfield, Massachusetts, growing their own food and refusing electricity.
Dorothy Day’s July–August 1975 On Pilgrimage column places Wally and Juanita Nelson at the June Peacemakers sessions at Tivoli. She recalls their support for Koinonia in Georgia amid racist attacks, and Wally’s risky trips to obtain seed peanuts for the community. This is Day’s retrospective account of their civil-rights work and continuing peace activism, not another documented imprisonment. Source: https://merton.bellarmine.edu/files/original/e47d99685e4e417d411cf7ee99fd06d6cfad4111.pdf#page=2
