What a Box Can Do: Celebrating 50 Years of The Box Project

The seeds of The Box Project were sown at the Geneva Disarmament Conference in 1962 when Virginia Naeve of Jamaica, Vermont, met and talked with Clarie Collins Harvey from Jackson, Mississippi, and Coretta Scott King from Atlanta, Georgia. They talked about war and segregation as part of man’s inhumanity to man. Back home in Vermont, Mrs. Naeve began to think about what she could do to lessen this inhumanity. Letters to Clarie Harvey and Coretta King brought the names of needy black families in Mississippi and Georgia to whom Mrs. Naeve began to send letters, clothing, household items, and food. From a gift subscription to a black newspaper in Jackson, Mississippi, Mrs. Naeve learned more about problems there. This resulted in her sending books for a new Freedom Library in meridian, Mississippi. To involve others who felt strongly about injustices in the south, Mrs. Naeve held a Civil Rights fair at her home. Clothing or food served as admission and she reaped 250 boxes worth! In order to get the clothing to where it was needed, she wrapped and stacked boxes near her front door. Everyone who visited was asked to mail a box. By the time the last box was sent, people had begun to realize they out to pack and mail their own boxes and were asking for names of families. This exhibit remembers the first families and all the families since that have been involved with The Box Project.