[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 186 (Wednesday, November 20, 2019)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1482]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      TRIBUTE TO JOSEPH SWEAT, JR.

                                 ______
                                 

                            HON. STEVE COHEN

                              of tennessee

                    in the house of representatives

                      Wednesday, November 20, 2019

  Mr. COHEN. Madam Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to Joseph Alton 
Sweat, Jr., a journalist, longtime civil rights and good government 
advocate and a friend, who died Friday at the age of 83.
       I knew Joe as a lobbyist for and executive director of the 
     Tennessee Municipal League, which he represented when I was 
     in the state Senate. He was highly respected as a lobbyist 
     and was always well-informed and he wrote a regular column on 
     politics and legislation for the municipal league newspaper 
     that members of the General Assembly always appreciated. 
     Before that, he had been a respected reporter for The 
     Associated Press, covering Elvis Presley's return to Memphis 
     in uniform; the plane crash that killed country music star 
     Patsy Cline in 1963; and the assassination of Dr. Martin 
     Luther King, Jr., in 1968. Joe also created the news bureau 
     at Vanderbilt University and edited The Vanderbilt Hustler 
     and later was the first lay editor of The Catholic Register.
  As a representative of the Tennessee Municipal League, he twice 
served on the board of directors of the National League of Cities. 
Later, representing the National Democratic Institute, he was sent to 
Bulgaria and Ukraine as the former Soviet satellites transitioned to 
democracies. After retiring in 1998, Joe joined his good friend Hedy 
Weinberg in lobbying for the American Civil Liberties Union of 
Tennessee and became a board member of both the Tennessee and national 
ACLU.
  Joe and I shared a love of Memphis State University and Memphis 
politics as well as a devotion to justice. I want to express my sincere 
condolences to his wife Marilyn; his sons Joseph, Stephen and Michael 
and daughter Cynthia and their extended families; and his many friends 
and colleagues. His was a life well-lived.

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