Juanita and Wally appear here in the late 1940s, shortly after Wally was released from prison. Wally had been in jail because he had walked out of a Civilian Public Service camp where he had been serving alternative duty during World War II. Wally was one of 37,000 American conscientious objectors who, at that time, refused to go to war and instead performed various duties at Civilian Public Service camps. Conscientious Objector Tedford Lewis remembers Wally from the time that they spent together at the Civilian Public Service camp in Coshocton, Ohio. Lewis surmises that notions of race did not mean all that much to Wally:
I would guess that Wally Nelson’s position was one that he was just concerned for people. I am sure that Wally Nelson saw color in other people in an entirely different way than I did on that walk into town. [at which time Lewis worried that the colors of their skin might put them in danger.] He saw the color in another person’s eyes, and the sparkle in the other person’s eyes, and he looked right on through and saw what was inside and what happened to be the wrapping just didn’t make any difference to Wally. This would be my feeling about it.
Wally Nelson is the second person on the left-hand side of this group of civil rights activists who participated in the Journey of Reconciliation in 1947. This was the first interracial “Freedom Ride” ever to take place in the United States. The trip was organized by CORE (The Congress of Racial Equality) and the Fellowship of Reconciliation. The Supreme Court had declared segregation on interstate transportation to be unconstitutional, and the “Freedom Ride” was meant to test how that decision would be complied with in the South. Like Juanita, Wally was consistent in his convictions. Tedford Lewis recalls a story that Wally related about being asked to sign a petition:
…he[Wally] had been sitting in a bar, and during those days it was rather common for the whites to go slumming…this was to go down into the black neighborhood, one or two couples, sit in a black bar, have a drink, and “watch the natives.” Well, this was a perfectly safe operation. It was considered quite a game for people. Well, so, Wally was sitting at this particular bar, and four white people came in. Someone at his table drew up a petition and passed it around his table to be signed. There were a dozen people or so, as I recall, at his table. He was the last one to see the petition, and it was a petition to prohibit whites from coming into that particular bar. He laid it on the table and said, “I’m sorry, I can’t sign this.” And the rest of them at the table said, “What do you mean…you can’t sign it?” He said, “Don’t we want to be welcomed into white society? If we want to be welcomed into white society, then we have to welcome white society into our society. We can’t ask for one-way discrimination.” And he said, “As long as I want our country to operate on a basis of no discrimination, I cannot share in any discriminatory act.”
Wally and Juanita Nelson stand before their Deerfield, Massachusetts home in February of 1986. Wally Nelson maintained his commitment to nonviolence throughout his life. He and Juanita joined Peacemakers, a national organization dedicated to active nonviolence. They also became, and Juanita still remains, an active war tax resister. Juanita recalls that she “became a pacifist for sure” after she met Wally. She remembers asking him the question, “Well, what would you do if…you were sure someone was trying to kill you.” His reply was, “I would try to protect myself by putting my hands over my head maybe, that sort of thing, but in the end I couldn’t decide that my life was worth more than somebody else’s.” Juanita says of his response, “…I guess I was ready for it, and that really moved me. And that was a very life-changing thing for me.”