Link by Link: A Vermont Woman’s Bold Acts for Peace and Civil Rights – VHC Snapshot

NWPL is thrilled to host a Vermont Humanities Council Snapshot event, a series of free talks held at public libraries around Vermont from September through May.

In 1962, Virginia Naeve attended her first international peace conference in Geneva, Switzerland. It was there that southern Black activists described the enduring poverty of the rural South and the burgeoning civil rights movement. UVM Professor of African American History Pamela Nicole Walker tells how Naeve returned home to Jamaica, VT to fight for peace and civil rights using mostly pen, paper, and a lot of gumption. 

Working with Coretta Scott King, Civil Rights Activist and wife of the late Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and Clarie Collins Harvey, Civil Rights Activist from Jackson, Mississippi, Naeve began what became known as “The Box Project.” She wrote letters and sent materials – food, clothing, diapers, and school supplies – to Mississippi Delta families in need. Neighbors joined the effort and the program spread to other communities including Woodstock.

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Pamela Nicole Walker is an Assistant Professor of African American History at the University of Vermont. She received her doctorate in African American and Women’s History from Rutgers University – New Brunswick. She is currently working on a book titled Signed, Sealed, Delivered: How Black and White Mothers Used the Box Project and the Postal System to Fight Hunger and Feed the Mississippi Freedom Movement. Signed, Sealed, Delivered tells a new and illuminating story of ordinary Black and white women’s overlooked participation in the modern civil rights movement using one of the nation’s largest federal agencies: the US Postal System. 

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This event is free and has a hybrid format: join us in person or online. Either way, please REGISTER with the VHC at this link.