Mr. Speaker, I rise today with a full heart to honor a man who has walked this earth for one hundred years--one hundred years of faith, family, perseverance, and love--my dear friend, Mr. James A.…
Mr. Speaker, I rise today with a full heart to honor a man who has walked this earth for one hundred years--one hundred years of faith, family, perseverance, and love--my dear friend, Mr. James A. Bussey, Sr. On Saturday, May 30, 2026, family, friends, and a grateful community will gather at the Columbus Museum in Columbus, Georgia, to celebrate a century of a life well lived. There are few honors in this chamber greater than the privilege of paying tribute to such a man.
David Viscott once wrote, ``The purpose of life is to discover your gift. The work of life is to develop it. The meaning of life is to give your gift away.'' For one hundred years, James Bussey has been giving his gift away--quietly, faithfully, and with a joy that has touched everyone fortunate enough to cross his path.
James Andrew Bussey was born in the red clay of Harris County, Georgia in 1926, into a world that too often refused to see him for the remarkable man he would become. He graduated from Spencer High School in 1944 and earned his way to Morehouse College in Atlanta, where he studied for a year before marrying Ms. Marguerite Lindsey in 1947. Together they made their home in Columbus, Georgia, and together they built a life on faith and hard work.
To support his young family, James worked two jobs week after week, refusing to let his children inherit anything less than the best of him. But in those years, the cruelty of racism shadowed every effort he made. In 1957, hoping to find dignity for his labor, he packed his hopes and headed north to Washington, D.C., where he took a position at the Washington Hotel. There he discovered, with a quiet and aching grief, that his weekly paycheck was less than that of his White co- workers. He returned home to Georgia--not defeated, but determined.
What followed is the story of a man who refused to let bitterness take root where faith had been planted. James Bussey found work as a Mail Handler with the United States Postal Service, and he carried the mail of his neighbors with a pride that turned an ordinary job into a daily ministry. He sang as he walked the East Highland route--a route he loved because it carried him past the homes of his mother and grandmother. He stopped for those who could not read their own mail and read it aloud to them. He wrote letters back for those whose hands could no longer hold a pen. Each Christmas, his city honored him by inviting him to drive the postal vehicle in the Columbus Christmas parade, where children waved and neighbors smiled at the sight of a man they all knew and loved.
He retired from the Postal Service in 1976--but James Bussey was not finished. At an age when most men rest, he enrolled in college. In 1988, he walked across the stage at Columbus College to receive his Bachelor of Arts degree, fulfilling a dream that decades and circumstances had once placed out of reach. He became a proud brother of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Incorporated, and to this day he lives by its call to brotherhood and service to all mankind.
Since the late 1940s, the pews of St. James AME Church have known the warmth of his voice. He serves as an officer, a faithful Son of Allen, and a soloist whose songs have lifted countless Sunday mornings toward heaven. He has welcomed visitors to his city as an Ambassador of the Columbus Visitors Bureau. He has graced the stages of the Liberty Theater, the Three Arts Theater, and the Columbus RiverCenter. And at one hundred years old, Mr. Speaker, James Bussey can still be found on the dance floor at the local senior center, ballroom dancing with a grace that puts younger men to shame.
With his late wife Marguerite, who preceded him in death, James was blessed with four children. He has known the particular sorrow that no parent should have to bear, having laid to rest his beloved son James Jr. and his cherished daughter Margaret--names he still speaks with tenderness, lives he still carries within his own. His daughter Janet and his son Michael remain to carry his name and his witness into another generation. He has been a grandfather and a great-grandfather, a brother in Christ, a neighbor, and a friend.
I have known James Bussey and his family for more than sixty years. In all that time,
through every season of my own life, I have never once known him to speak an unkind word, to turn away a soul in need, or to lose his faith in the goodness of God. He is, without exaggeration, one of the finest human beings I have ever had the privilege to know. Whatever I have learned in this life about quiet dignity, about endurance, about loving one's neighbor--I have learned in no small part from watching him live.
Our Lord said, ``He that is great among you shall be a servant, and he that is greatest among you shall be a servant unto all.'' For one hundred years, James Bussey has shown us what that scripture looks like when it puts on shoes and walks among us.
Mr. Speaker, I ask that my colleagues in the United States House of Representatives join my wife Vivian and me, along with the more than 765,000 people of Georgia's 2nd Congressional District, in extending our deepest love and warmest wishes to Mr. James A. Bussey, Sr., as he celebrates a full century of grace this Saturday at the Columbus Museum. May the God he has served so faithfully continue to bless him, to keep him, and to make His face shine upon him today, tomorrow, and for every precious day still to come.
Happy 100th Birthday, my dear friend. The world is a kinder place because you walked through it.
