Juanita Morrow Nelson

While a student there in 1943, she was arrested for trying to eat at the whites-only lunch counter at United Cigar Store and Luncheon on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, D.C.[2]: 16–18  This was among the earliest sit-ins of the American Civil Rights Movement.

In 1948, they attended the founding conference of Peacemakers, an organization that pioneered the modern war tax resistance movement in the United States.

[2]: 37–38, 51  Juanita was jailed for the first time during a nonviolent direct action campaign to try to desegregate the Coney Island (Cincinnati, Ohio) amusement park.

[2]: 42 In 1957 the Nelsons spent a few months at the racially integrated Koinonia Farm in Americus, Georgia, and continued to work with that project for the next decade.

Along with Wally, Juanita and another war tax resister, Eroseanna Robinson, were also arrested and dubbed the "Elkton Three" when they attempted to integrate a restaurant in Maryland.

[6] Their critique of the economic system included a condemnation of usury — at one point, Juanita convinced the Pioneer Valley War Tax Resisters that interest payments were ethically insupportable.

[7] Starting in 1960, the Nelsons worked with Operation Freedom, which helped to support black Americans who were facing organized reprisals and boycotts from white supremacists if they attempted to register to vote.

[2]: 58–52 The Nelsons began to experiment with more deliberate voluntary simplicity in an off-the-grid home in Ojo Caliente in New Mexico in the early 1970s.

[2]: 64  They moved to Deerfield, Massachusetts, in 1974, building a 16′×24′ (36 m2) cabin with salvaged materials and without electricity or plumbing, and growing the majority of their own food on a half-acre (2,000 m2) of land.

[2]: 76–81 For their role as farmers, civil rights activists, pacifists, war tax resisters, their love & generosity and their spirited life of service to the movements of social justice, activist nonviolence and peace, Juanita Nelson and her husband, Wally Nelson received the Courage of Conscience Award from The Peace Abbey in Sherborn, Massachusetts.