A Champion of Justice: Triad Civil Rights Icon, Willena Cannon, Dies

By Ian McDowell/YesWeekly - Jan 21, 2026 Updated Jan 21, 2026


“The passing of Willena Cannon is a major loss to all who fight for justice,” said Brigette E. Rasberry, executive director of the Beloved Community Center of Greensboro, about the pioneering civil rights leader who passed away on Jan. 10 at the age of 85.

“Her fearless courage to confront inequality while fighting for the dignity, worth, and access of all people to the opportunities afforded a limited few is the very embodiment of the Beloved spirit.”

The Rev. Wesley Morris of Faith Community Church agreed. “She was one of my favorite people and one of the most powerful truth-tellers I ever met,” emailed Morris, three days before delivering Cannon‘s eulogy during the Jan. 17 homegoing ceremony at Genesis Baptist Church. “I knew her as a deacon upon my arrival in Greensboro and will forever remember her presence in my life.”

Willena R. Cannon peacefully transitioned from this life on Saturday, January 10, 2026, at her home in Greensboro, North Carolina. She was born on Friday, March 1, 1940, in Marion County, South Carolina, the sixth of ten children born to the late Eugene and Annie Dell Reaves, who were sharecroppers.

In 1963, she enrolled in North Carolina Agricultural & Technical State University, where she majored in student health and physical education and was captain of the women’s basketball team.

Inspired by student body president and civil rights leader Jesse Jackson, Cannon participated in massive protests aimed at desegregating the Carolina Theater, McDonald’s, Biff Burger, Dairy Queen, and K&W Cafeteria. After police arrested 4,951 demonstrators, jails were so crowded that Cannon was held in the former polio sanatorium. After two weeks of picketing, boycotts, and arrests, most segregated businesses caved, leaving K&W the last major holdout. The chain would not allow Black customers to eat inside until forced to do so by the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Cannon remained an activist all her life, participating in the African Liberation Movement, the Blind Workers Strike, the Cafeteria Workers Strike, the Kmart boycott, and efforts to establish district representation on the Greensboro City Council. For 45 years, she served with Greensboro’s Healthy Homes Division, where her work to improve housing and remove environmental hazards brought her national recognition.

In 2019, Cannon was interviewed by Summer Kinney for the UNC Greensboro oral history project “Unsung Heroes of the Civil Rights Movement.” The resulting video, “Oral history interview with Willena Cannon,” can be viewed at digitalgreensborodotorg and on YouTube.

In it, Cannon describes how, at the age of nine, she witnessed the lynching of a Black man for a clandestine relationship with a white woman. “Because she loved him,” said Cannon, the woman did not attempt to save herself by falsely claiming rape, “as happened a lot back then.”

“When I saw her, she had blood all over. I don’t know what happened to her, but know they beat her with rocks.” But Cannon did see and hear what the white mob did to the woman’s lover.

“They put him in an old barn, locked the doors and set it on fire, and I could hear him hollering piercing screams, and then silence, and the barn burned down. The sheriff came out and said that it wasn’t his business and left.”

She said she never let go of her rage and sorrow from witnessing the murder and law enforcement complicity, which gave her the strength to defy racists decades later.

She felt that strength in 1963, when customers and staff cursed and threatened her for demanding to be served at K&W. She felt it again in July 1979, when she and other antiracist organizers faced down the Klan in China Grove. Four months later, minutes after Klansmen and Nazis murdered five of her fellow organizers at a Greensboro labor march, it drove her to intervene when she believed police were about to kill Nelson Johnson.

This happened in the immediate aftermath of the Greensboro Massacre, the deadly Nov. 3, 1979, attack on a labor march organized by Johnson and other members of the Communist Workers Party, who were attempting to unionize Cone Mills. As Greensboro City Council acknowledged in 2020, police were aware of gunmen heading to the scene, but pulled back and did not intervene until the bloodshed was over.

Several officers grabbed Johnson, still bleeding from the Nazi knife thrust through his arm, and took him to the ground. Video shows an officer kicking at and leaning on his shoulders and head.

“They were trying to break his neck, and I knew they could get away with it by saying he was acting all wild.” So Cannon dove into the altercation and was arrested along with her friend and mentor.

“On the way to jail, I asked why they were arresting me. The police said, ‘We’ll think of something; we’ll know by the time we get you there.’”

Retired civil rights attorney Lewis Pitts called Cannon “a combination of Sojourner Truth, Fannie Lou Hamer, and Angela Davis.” Pitts first met her during the 1980-85 lawsuit, which found the City of Greensboro, two police officers, a police/FBI informant, and five Klan-Nazi shooters liable for the wrongful death of Dr. Michael Nathan, the one victim who was not a communist, and for assault and battery of two surviving demonstrators.

“She quickly became a friend and role model who showed solidarity with poor and working-class people, no matter their race, by her fierce struggle for justice and equality. We have lost a great one, but her legacy lives on, and is needed now more than ever.”

Greensboro City Council At-Large representative Irving Allen called Cannon “a pillar of the community whose courage and lifelong commitment to justice reflected the very best of our city.”

“She organized for voting rights and racial justice alongside the A&T Four and Rev. Jesse Jackson, and she participated in the desegregation of the K&W Cafeteria, a pivotal moment that challenged everyday racism and proved the power of collective action. I am deeply honored to have been on the last ballot that Ms. Cannon voted on. That responsibility will continue to guide me and my fellow council members as we work to carry on her legacy. Her life is a powerful reminder that progress is possible when we stand for what is right and fight together. Her message to the next generation remains clear and urgent: get involved.”
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Willena leaves to cherish her memory her beloved children: Kwame Cannon, Imani Sudderth, and Kweli Sudderth, all of Greensboro, N C; her siblings, Sue Holmes (Noble) of Mitchellville, MD; Annette Bolden of Jacksonville, FL; Harry Reaves and Rev. Linda Guy (Haywood), both of Greensboro, NC; eleven grandchildren—April Randall, Maceo Cannon, Kwame Cannon Jr., Willow Cannon, Tendi Parker, Taj Sudderth, Chonecie Morgan, Laura Clinton, Kweli “KJ” Sudderth Jr., Kobe Cartwright, and Kaylee Sudderth; four great-grandchildren—Zion Parker, Amina Parker, Kyan Broadnax, and Mahaly Heygood; along with a host of nieces, nephews, extended family members, and friends.
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Other source: Ms. Willena Cannon Obituary - https://www.woodardbroadnaxfuneralservice.com/obituary/MsWillena-Cannon