Eye on the Struggle by James McGrath Morris

Author:James McGrath Morris
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2015-01-25T16:00:00+00:00

A YEAR INTO THE KENNEDY administration, on January 26, 1962, COPE fired Payne. No public reason was given. Some press accounts attributed the termination to an economy move. “Ranks of the AFL-CIO’s staff employees and some labor circles are wondering out loud why it happened,” reported the Pittsburgh Courier. When she was asked, Payne refused to comment beyond confirming she had been let go.

The speculation was that Payne’s independent political streak had become too much for union leaders. From the beginning her fidelity to the labor movement’s alliance with the Democratic Party had been suspect because of the widely publicized visit to her home by then vice-president and 1960 Republican presidential nominee Richard Nixon. Payne’s support for insurgent candidate Frank Reeves had certainly not helped.

At first it was thought that Payne might become deputy director of the newly created Agency for International Development. Instead, Payne accepted an offer from the Democratic National Committee to become the deputy field director. Margaret Price, the director of women’s activities for the party, hired Payne to recruit and organize black women. “The appointment is the first move of the Dems to develop a striking force among Negro women,” noted Jet magazine.

In September, the White House dispatched Payne, along with presidential aides Hobart Taylor Jr., special counsel to the Commission on Equal Employment Opportunity, and Andrew Hatcher, the first black person to serve in the White House Press Office, to the annual meeting of the Improved Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks of the World, the largest black fraternal organization, in Detroit. The goal of the White House emissaries was to win support for Kennedy’s Medicare bill. But the Elks’ Grand Exalted Ruler, who was a Republican, declined to lend his organization’s support to the controversial legislation. However, before Payne left Detroit, he permitted her to argue in favor of Medicare in a closed session. In doing so, she became the first woman to speak before the group. The audience did not buy Payne’s message, but she received a standing ovation.

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