Donald M. Payne

Donald Milford Payne was born on the sixteenth of July 1934 at Newark, New Jersey, the son of William Payne Sr. — a Black warehouse worker of the Newark Pennsylvania Railroad yards — and Norma Garrett Payne, a domestic. He was raised in the segregated Black-Newark Central Ward of the inter-war period.

He was placed at the Newark Barringer High School and at the Seton Hall University at South Orange, New Jersey, completing the bachelor’s in social studies at Seton Hall in 1957 — among the first Black graduates of the institution.

He served the United States Army Reserve from 1958 to 1964 and worked across the closing years of the 1950s and the 1960s as a teacher of social studies at the Newark public schools — predominantly at the Newark Roseville Avenue School and the Newark Central High School.

He was named in 1964 the principal of the Newark Hovey Avenue School and from 1973 the principal sales-and-marketing executive of the Prudential Insurance Company of America at Newark.

He was elected on the third of November 1972 to the Essex County Board of Chosen Freeholders — the principal Black-Essex-County elected official of the post-Newark-uprising period.

He was elected in 1970 the principal Black-American president of the National Council of the Young Men’s Christian Association of the United States — the first African American to chair the principal post-war American Christian-and-youth-services organisation. He held the YMCA presidency for two years.

He was named in 1973 the principal Black-American World Council of YMCAs at Geneva — the first African American to chair the international body of the YMCA. He held the World YMCA chairmanship from 1973 to 1977 — during which he developed the principal international Black-and-African outreach programmes of the World YMCA of the period.

He was elected on the eighth of November 1988 to the United States House of Representatives from the Tenth District of New Jersey at Newark — the first African American elected to the United States Congress from the state of New Jersey. He served the United States Congress from January 1989 to March 2012 — twelve consecutive terms — predominantly as a member of the Education and the Workforce Committee and the Foreign Affairs Committee.

He was elected on the third of January 1995 the chair of the Congressional Black Caucus — the principal Black-Congressional organisational body of the period — and held the chairmanship for one term through January 1997.

He was the principal Congressional Black Caucus voice on African affairs from 1989 onward and the principal Congressional sponsor of the principal African-aid-and-trade legislation of the period — the Sudan Peace Act of 2002, the Liberian Refugee Immigration Fairness Act of 2007, and the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act of 1986 follow-on legislation.

He was named on the third of January 2007 the chair of the Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Africa and Global Health — the principal Congressional body on the post-cold-war African-affairs of the period. He held the Subcommittee chairmanship from 2007 to 2010 — during which he conducted the principal field-inspection missions to the Darfur (2008), Somalia (2009), and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (2010).

He survived an attempted assassination at Mogadishu, Somalia on the eleventh of April 2009 — when his AU-AMISOM motorcade was struck by a roadside improvised explosive device and a sniper attack. He was uninjured.

He died at Manhattan on the sixth of March 2012 of complications of colon cancer, at seventy-seven.

He is honored here as the principal Black-American voice on post-cold-war Africa.