Please join Save Austin's Cemeteries and The Friends of Juanita Craft to remember and dedicate the beautiful new gravestone for Juanita Craft, the pioneering Civil Rights leader.  A memorial program will be held at Oakwood Memorial Chapel starting at 10:30 am.  Following the program, there will be a blessing and flower laying at the gravesite at Evergreen Cemetery.  Please join us in remembering this amazing woman.

Juanita Craft, born Juanita Shanks, was born in Round Rock, Texas in 1902. She was the only child of school teachers. Craft received her teaching certificate from Sam Huston College in Austin, Texas.  

After moving to Dallas, Craft joined the NAACP in 1935.  She eventually became the Dallas NAACP membership chair in 1942 and the Texas NAACP field organizer in 1946.  She helped organize 182 branches of the NAACP over eleven years.  In 1944, Craft became the first black woman in Dallas County to vote in a public election.  In 1955, she organized a protest against the State Fair of Texas against its policy of admitting blacks on only one day.  Craft also assisted in the organization of protests and pickets in segregated lunch counters, restaurants, theaters and public transportation.  Mrs. Craft served two terms on the Dallas City Council from 1975 and 1979.  Craft received many awards honoring her dedication to the Civil Rights movement, including the NAACP Golden Heritage Life Membership Award and the Eleanor Roosevelt Humanitarian Award.