TBA Law Blog


Posted by: Stacey Shrader Joslin on Apr 16, 2021

Roscoe Dixon, a Memphis Democrat who was prominent in state politics for more than a decade before his 2006 conviction in the FBI’s Tennessee Waltz corruption sting, died yesterday at 71, the Commercial Appeal reports. Dixon got his start in politics at the Urban League, the NAACP, the Rev. Jesse Jackson's Operation PUSH and on the 1974 congressional campaign of Harold Ford Sr. He first ran for the Memphis City Council but lost in a runoff. He took a year to work on Jimmy Carter's 1976 presidential campaign in Atlanta and then returned to Memphis to build a grassroots coalition. He was then elected to the state House and served there from 1978 to 1994 when he joined the state Senate. He served there until 2005. Dixon was convicted in 2006 on bribery and extortion charges for accepting $9,500 to help pass legislation. He was sentenced to five years in federal prison. After his release, he became an advocate for the restoration of voting rights for felons.