God rest the noble soul of Don Payne. He was a lovely man who ' hungered and thirsted for justice' -- in America, Africa, Ireland and throughout the world.
Don had an amazing interest in Ireland. I used to tell him he had been to The North more often than I!
 I record in my Memoirs, My American Struggle for Justice in Northern Ireland, Don's deep interest, letting him speak for himself at the Congressional Hearing on the Mac Bride Principles on March 15, 1995 :
Congressman Payne, the first speaker after Chairman Gilman’s introduction, quickly set the scene : ' As an African American, I and eight other Members of theCongressional Black Caucus who are Congressional Friends of  the Irish National Caucus can easily identify with the Catholic minority[ in Northern Ireland]… The Mac Bride Principles were modeled after the Sullivan Principles … In the campaign for a free South Africa, we received a lot of help from Irish-Americans. For example, Father Sean Mc Manus, president of the Irish National Caucus, was the first white Catholic priest to go to jail overnight for protesting outside the South African Embassy.'