Wallace Floyd Nelson (27 March 1909 – 23 May 2002) was an American civil rights activist and war tax resister.
He spent three and a half years in prison as a conscientious objector during World War II, was on the first of the "Freedom Rides" (then called the "Journey of Reconciliation") enforcing desegregation in 1947, and was the first national field organizer for the Congress of Racial Equality.
For their role as civil rights activists, they received the Courage of Conscience Award from The Peace Abbey in Sherborn, Massachusetts.
Soon after beginning at the camp he realized it was a mistake, as he did not want to co-operate with the war effort by working for the government on the home front.
The first time that the guards force fed him, they purposefully made the tubes too large, making this process torturous for Nelson.
[2]: 29 Nelson Participated in the first Freedom Ride (then referred to as the Journey of Reconciliation) in which people purposefully rode in the "wrong" seats (blacks in the front, whites in the back) in 1947 to test a new Supreme Court ruling banning the enforcement of segregation on interstate public transportation (several arrests and even convictions of riders proved that the ruling was not being obeyed).
He rode with a number of notable Freedom Riders such including Bayard Rustin, Conrad Lynn, James Peck, Igal Roodenko, Homer Jack, and George Houser.
They cut their expenses dramatically — building a house with salvaged materials and without electricity or plumbing, and growing the majority of their own food on a half-acre of land.
[2]: 43–48 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.
[4][2]: 51–52 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]: 62 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.