U.S. Senator Cory Booker today delivered the following eulogy in celebration of the life of Rep. Donald M. Payne, Jr., who died last week at age 65:
“Good morning. Y’all, we’re in one of the most imminent basilicas in all of America, but we’re also still in Newark. Y’all come on. Good morning. Don’t forget where you are. Don Payne had that effect on me. I’d be sitting up in some incredible podium by a president or a world leader, and I’d get off that stage and Don might be right there in front, and he’d look at me and goes, ‘don’t forget where you’re from. I know where you live. Don’t lose yourself down here.’ I cannot tell you what it means to stand here in the heart of our city and look out and see hundreds of folk I have known for decades. We are gathering here with a lot of other people, from a lot of other places, coming back to the city that is Donald’s.
“I will tell you this — for those of you that don’t know — there is not a stone you can throw, not a place you can go, not a road on which you can drive, that the Payne family has not had an impact on in our city. You might have come here on a plane, you might have come here on the train, but Donald Payne and his family have impacted every single artery, every single area of our community, and the jobs that this family have generated– from those down at our port and in warehouses from the airport, people who have education, people who turn a faucet and have clean water, people who dial 911 hoping that the police or the fire department will arrive, have a Payne family member to thank.
“This should be a moment for us with one of the great sons of this city before us, not just to feel sadness and sorrow, but to feel joy and jubilation.
“My journey with Don Payne has been long, and he would tell me that. We had these parallel careers. Both of us came up in the city council. When I was mayor of the city. Don Payne was the council president. Now, I will tell you, those years were tough years for our city. There was a global recession going on. The unemployment rate in Newark was over 20%. Like knife wound in every community, there were foreclosures rifling through. The hardness of that time of leadership. I saw Don at his best. I saw his unwavering commitment and dedication to people. You see, Don may have looked a little flashy. He had these incredible suits and a pocket square that would match his socks and we already been speaking about the bow tie. But I want you to know that Donald Payne was a humble man. He was a guy that had a bit of swagger in his walk, but he was truly a gentle man. When he came into a room, he didn’t suck the oxygen out of it, he brought warmth into it. Don was this guy that wasn’t loud. But when he spoke, you listened to him. His gentility opened hearts. He had a way of seeing people that others overlook, and lifting folks up who others just walked on by.
“But there’s one particular day I’ll never forget because I’m the mayor of the city and he’s the council president. We have to talk multiple times a day. There were crises during this recession, from sewer systems to foreclosures, challenges, development projects we were trying to get, parks, trying to figure out the allocations of the capital budget — he and I were constantly talking to each other.
“But on one of my worst days in public life, when we are in the midst of making decisions between God awful choices, and hellish one, Don comes up and as my assistant did when he approached the office, she just let him walk in no matter who I was meeting with. And this time I’m at my desk stressing over the numbers on a spreadsheet, and he walks in and I look at him and ‘I go, Don, what do you need, man?’ He goes, ‘I don’t need anything, but I think you need something.’ And he said ‘get out from behind that desk and sit down with me.’ And I came over to my conference table and he and I sit back, sat down, and he said, ‘let’s have a moment of prayer.’ And then when we were done, he looks at me — and this is the first time I can remember him saying it — at a time that I was not feeling great about myself, he looked at me and he said, ‘I’m proud of you.’ And he goes, ‘something told me, you need to hear this too.’ And this kind of shook me a little bit, because it’s not the kind of thing to fellas from, from the streets are going to necessarily say to each other, he looks at me and said, ‘I just feel like you need to hear this, but man, I love you. I love you.’
“Now our journey continued. He went off to Washington, and he thought he was getting away from me. But I ran for Senate just to join him. He said, ‘Cory, am I going to have to get a temporary restraining order out against yo? man? Why are you following me? Why are you sweating me, man?
“And to have him as my partner, two Congress people from Newark, New Jersey, growing up just a few miles from each other, coming up on the same streets, representing the same communities, it was amazing to have him there. He never let my head get too big and always kept my feet on the ground, but he would repeat to me over and over, ‘I’m proud of you, man. I love you. Don’t forget where you came from.’ BC is her; so many members. They are family. I got sent down the Washington, and I was the only black person in our caucus, and I’d come over there, and it would be like community; Marcia Fudge, the secretary of housing, she almost threatened my life once when I brought vegan food to the to the lunch. Don told me, ‘Don’t do that again, man. Don’t do that again.’
“He would say it, ‘Proud of you, man, I love you.’
“When I got the news, it was right around my birthday that he passed, and I was on vacation, and I sat up and I knew he’d been struggling with health challenges for a long time; I sat up and I thought about the fact that in our last conversation, he ended it with the last words I would ever hear from from him, ‘I love you.’ And suddenly I wished. that wasn’t the last time. A friendship that I had with me for 25 years. Dismissing of him. I wanted to hug him. I wanted to tease him and hear him tease me. And then I tell you, God works in crazy ways, because right then I knew we used to talk about which one of us would go first and how we would tell the truth on the other one if we ever got the chance. And so I want to end by what I held on to when I heard this on the 24th. I want to end with the words from the Bible that shot into my heart and into my mind, into my soul, that describe this man perfectly.
“‘If I speak in the tongues of men and angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong and a cling symbol. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all the mysteries and knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all my possessions to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I might boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.’ Donald is love is patient. Love is kind. It does not envy. It does not boast. It is not proud. It does not dishonor others. It’s not self-seeking, it is not easily angered. It keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil, but rejoices in the truth, Donald, my brother.|
“Love always protects. Love always trusts, always hopes. Always preserves. Love never fails. Donald Payne, you never failed Newark. You never failed her people. You never failed those who were struggling. You never failed those that needed a hand. You never failed a child that was looking for an education. You never failed me, ever. And I will tell you right now, Donald Payne may be gone in the body, but the love of the Lord. The love of the Lord is forever. Don’s legacy of love will be forever, and I am forever grateful. To the family. I’m sorry for your grief, but I am thankful for the love you gave him that allowed him to do such extraordinary acts of love for all of us. And to my brother, I say one more time. I’m proud of you. And I love you too.”
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