Juanita Nelson

Juanita Morrow Nelson (August 17, 1923 – March 9, 2015) was an American activist and war tax resister.

She co-founded the group Peacemakers in 1948. She was the author of A Matter of Freedom and Other Writings (1988).

She worked on desegregation campaigns in Cincinnati, Washington D.C. and elsewhere and was an organizer for the Congress of Racial Equality. In 1943 she participated in some of the earliest sit-ins of the American Civil Rights Movement, while a journalist and student at Howard University.

By her own account, at the age of sixteen (1939) she and her mother boarded a train in Cleveland, Ohio and were sent to the "colored" cars to the rear. Incensed by the deplorable conditions of the coach, young Juanita fumed for a while then decided to move to the "white" coaches toward the front. These coaches had comfortable seats, no trash and foul smells, and were well kept. "I sat there a while and when nothing happened, I decided to move forward to the next car. I sat a while in each of the white cars moving to the front of the train to show them that I was as good as any passenger. No one said anything until a black conductor said that he was concerned about what might happen to me, that I might get hurt or something. I went on until I had sat in all of the white cars and then went back to my mother in the colored coach. I didn't do anything, nothing had changed, but I felt a lot better about myself."

In 1948 Juanita began her lifelong relationship with Wally Nelson, whom she met when she interviewed him in jail while she was working as a journalist. Wally was the first Field Secretary for the Congress of Racial Equality(CORE). With Wally, Juanita planned and participated in the first 'Freedom Rides' in the late 1940s, leading to the Southern Freedom Movement, also known as the Civil Rights Movement. Together they began engaging in war tax resistance. “When we became tax resisters in 1948,” they wrote, “it included not filing, not answering notices to supply information and making sure we had something to refuse.”

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