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. Wally & Juanita were also founding members of the Valley Community Land Trust in western Massachusetts. A no-interest loan fund is now held by the trust in Wally's memory. Wally Nelson died at the age of 93 after more than a half-century of war tax resistance and activism. Early life Wally Nelson was born in Altheimer, Arkansas, on March 27, 1909 to Lydia and Duncan William Nelson. His family moved to Little Rock, Arkansas, when he was about six. He was a younger son in a larger family of sharecroppers, which shaped some of Nelson's values. Later, he went north with his brother in Batavia, Ohio, and attended a somewhat integrated high school there. He helped to integrate the welcoming party for incoming freshmen, to which black students had previously been excluded. In 1933, after graduating high school, he moved to Chicago and became active in Methodist youth activities, attended a 1934 student anti-war strike, and joined the American Youth Congress. He was courted by the Communist Party but declined to join on the grounds that he had committed to nonviolence. He was one of those who took the Oxford Pledge, vowing that "Because war is anti-human, anti-social, and anti-Christian, I will not support my country at war." He began attending Ohio Wesleyan University in 1940, and also began working on integration campaigns being organized by the Congress of Racial Equality, in part by trying to be served at restaurants and other establishments to see if they were obeying the local antidiscrimination ordinance. Career Imprisonment After being initially denied, Nelson eventually won conscientious objector status from the draft board, and when he was drafted he was assigned to a Civilian Public Service camp as an alternative to military service. Soon after beginning at the camp he realized it was a mistake, as he did not want to co-operate with the war