[Congressional Record Volume 169, Number 39 (Wednesday, March 1, 2023)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E168-E169]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




   HONORING THE EXTRAORDINARY LIFE AND LEGACY OF AMBASSADOR JAMES A. 
                                 JOSEPH

                                 ______
                                 

                          HON. TERRI A. SEWELL

                               of alabama

                    in the house of representatives

                        Wednesday, March 1, 2023

  Ms. SEWELL. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor the extraordinary life 
and legacy of Ambassador James A. Joseph, who passed away on February 
17, 2023, at the age of 87. Although originally from Louisiana, 
Ambassador Joseph had ties to Tuscaloosa, where he helped lead local 
civil rights efforts in the 1960s.
  Ambassador Joseph served with distinction in under several 
Presidents, including as Under Secretary of Interior under President 
Carter and as our Ambassador to South Africa for three years during the 
Clinton Administration. The only U.S. Ambassador to present his 
credentials to President Nelson Mandela, he was awarded the Order of 
Good Hope by the Republic of South Africa in 1999, the highest honor 
bestowed on a citizen of another country.
  Under President Clinton, Ambassador Joseph also served as the 
founding chair of the Commission on National and Community Service that 
established AmeriCorps. Reflecting the high regard in which he was 
held, Ambassador Joseph served under President Ronald Reagan on the 
Advisory Committee for the

[[Page E169]]

Agency for International Development and on the Board of Advisors for 
Historically Black Colleges and Universities and as an Incorporating 
Director of the Points of Lights Foundation under President George H.W. 
Bush. In 2010, he was honored by the United States Peace Corps for his 
life-long contributions to voluntarism and civil society.
  From 1982 to 1995, Joseph was President and Chief Executive Officer 
of the Council on Foundations, an international organization of more 
than 2,000 foundations and corporate giving programs, which changed 
communities and lives on five continents. He served as a Vice President 
of Cummins Engine Company, the world's largest producer of heavy-duty 
diesel engines, and President of the Cummins Foundation from 1971 to 
1977, where he was a pioneer in corporate social responsibility and 
helped fund a broad array of civil rights and civil society 
organizations.
  Ambassador Joseph's journey was historic, having started life on a 
family farm in Southwest Louisiana, spending his early years in 
segregated Opelousas, Louisiana--the state headquarters of the Ku Klux 
Klan--and rising to the heights of achievement and contributions in 
academia, public service, civil society, and the private sector. My 
House colleagues may be interested to learn that in high school, he won 
the state oratory competition and placed second in the national 
competition to one of my predecessors and role models, the future 
Congresswoman Barbara Jordan (D-TX), the first Southern African-
American woman elected to the United States House of Representatives.
  Ambassador Joseph was a leader in the fight for civil rights. After 
graduating from Southern University in 1956 and obtaining a master's 
degree from Yale Divinity School in 1963, he taught at Stillman College 
in Tuscaloosa, the national headquarters of the KKK. While at Stillman, 
Joseph cofounded the local civil rights movement, leading marches, sit-
ins, and other protests against segregation, garnering death threats 
from the KKK. He befriended and worked alongside renown civil rights 
leaders including The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., former U.S. 
Ambassador to the United Nations Andrew Young, former Congressman John 
Lewis and William Gray, former National Urban League President Vernon 
Jordan, and others.
  After his government service, Ambassador Joseph continued to find 
ways to contribute to American society, including serving as Chair of 
the Board of Directors of the Foundation for Louisiana after Hurricanes 
Rita and Katrina decimated New Orleans and communities across the 
southern part of the state.
  I ask my colleagues to join me in extending our sincere condolences 
to Ambassador Joseph's family, including his son and my college 
classmate, Jeff Joseph, his wife, the former Mary Braxton of Sarasota, 
Florida, daughter Denise, daughter-in-law Lisa Merman, and 
granddaughters Jordan and Julia Joseph.

                          ____________________