Career
Born in Round Rock, Texas, Craft came to Dallas from the Austin area in 1925, being employed as a maid at the Adolphus Hotel and later as a seamstress. She joined the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in 1935, eventually becoming the Dallas National Association for the Advancement of Colored People membership chairman in 1942 and the Texas National Association for the Advancement of Colored People field organizer in 1946. She helped to organize 182 branches of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People over eleven years.
Following the 1954 decision in Brown v.
Board of Education, Craft worked to integrate the University of Texas Law School and the Dallas Independent School District. She later served two terms on the Dallas City Council from 1975 and 1979.
The Juanita Jewel Craft Recreation Center and a Dallas city park were named in her honor as was a United States. Post Office in southeast Dallas. Her home on Warren Avenue in South Dallas is now the Juanita J. Craft Civil Rights House and is part of Dallas"s Wheatley Place Historic District.
Climbing the wooden steps of its front porch were many historic figures seeking audience with Juanita Craft, including Martin Luther King, Junior., and President Lyndon B. Johnson.