June 2002

Views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily of the AFSC.

Saying Farewell to Wally Nelson

"Nonviolence is the constant awareness of the dignity and humanity of oneself and others; it seeks truth and justice; it renounces violence both in method and in attitude; it is a courageous acceptance of active love and goodwill as the instrument with which to overcome evil and transform both oneself and others. It is the willingness to undergo suffering rather than inflict it. It excludes retaliation and flight."

Peace activist, tax resister, organic farmer, and beloved organizer Wallace Floyd "Wally" Nelson died on May 23, 2002 in Greenfield, MA. He was 93.

Wally Nelson

Wally Nelson, who was born into a large sharecropper family in the town of Altheimer, Arkansas in 1909, served in his youth as a regional youth director for the United Methodist Church. As a committed advocate of active nonviolence, he refused to bear arms during World War II. He was sent to a Civilian Public Service camp, followed by three and a half years in federal prison. While in prison, he played a key role in ending racial segregation as the official 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 landmark US Supreme Court decision banning racial segregation in interstate transportation. In 1948, he co-founded Peacemakers, a national organization dedicated to active nonviolence as a way of life. In the same year, he and his wife, Juanita Nelson, began their lifelong practice of refusing to pay taxes for the use of armaments and killing.

During the early 1950s, as the first national field organizer for the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), he directed several interracial workshops on nonviolent direct action in Washington, DC, which led to the complete desegregation of public places in the nation's capital. For the next several decades he continued to participate in numerous social justice and civil rights groups and activities.

In 1974, Wally and Juanita moved to Woolman Hill in Deerfield, MA where they started an organic vegetable farm. During the late 1970s, they were among the founders of the Valley Community Land Trust in Franklin County, Pioneer Valley War Tax Resisters, and the Greenfield Farmers' Market. Wally was well-known as a regular market vendor every Saturday morning in downtown Greenfield, and as a participant in the annual war tax protest in front of the Greenfield Post Office on Tax Day.

Juanita Nelson said after his death, "I learned an awful lot from Wally since the time I first met him. He was always very down-to-earth. There was no pretense about him. He was always just himself--warts and all, and apparently, he was a great influence on many people just by being himself."

Memorial contributions are suggested to the Valley Community Land Trust, POB 1552, Greenfield MA 01302, or to the Pioneer Valley War Tax Resisters, POB 223, Greenfield MA 01302.

Material combined from Randy Kehler and the Brattleboro Reformer.

Wally Nelson wrote this in 1985 when Peacework asked several peace activists "What keeps you going?"

What has kept me going since the early 1930s trying to help make our world, our universe, a human and lovable place to live? The clearest answer for me can be expressed in one word--commitment. What spiritual values I may possess are embodied in this term. Surely, my motivations come out of it.

Commitment means "pledging or engaging oneself." At my first demonstration, the student strike against war rally in 1934, I committed myself to opposing US wars of aggression. One year later, with 500 Methodist youths, I pledged: "Because war is anti-social, anti-human, and anti-Christian, I will not support my country in war." This commitment remains a focal point of my life. With all the hate, suffering, and violence, how else should one be committed?

Commitment, as I see it, is not static. It grows with one's better understanding of what one's commitment is all about. When the draft was instituted in 1940, I registered as a conscientious objector. When I understood more fully the implications of the draft in general, and my direct connections with the government's war-making in particular, I was impelled to leave the CO camp where I had been for a year. Subsequently I was imprisoned with a five-year sentence.

Commitment may be seen as a constant state of fertilization of the heart and mind which fuels the determination to live up to one's beliefs. Being true to your commitment is keeping a profound promise to oneself and others. Sometimes it can be scary. Nevertheless--and this is very important--one feels, I believe, a sense of integrity for keeping faith with oneself by striving to express in action the soul's deepest sense of what is right and good.

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