Essex County Executive Joe DiVincenzo today delivered the following eulogy in celebration of the life of Rep. Donald M. Payne, Jr., who died last week at age 65:
“To Reverand clergy, to the governor and the first lady, to all the elected officials. Now, I got to follow Ras Baraka. My people were part of organizing this too. Hakeem Jeffries? You know, Cory Booker, these are people I have to follow. Maxine Waters, Nancy Pelosi. Now I wonder why I always thought why he was so normal. Donald Payne, he was with all the stars. But when he came back here, he was just Donald Payne. You know, nine months ago, we were right here, Governor, if you remember, Sheila Oliver, our very own lieutenant governor, passed away. Today, Donald Payne. And the reason I bring that up. Donald Payne Sr. was Sheila Oliver’s mentor. Sheila Oliver was Donald Payne Jr.’s Mentor, and they helped each other through. It’s pretty amazing. They all lived in the South Ward. Sheila went to Weequahic, I went to Barringer, and we were just all one family. You know, 22 years I’ve been the county executive and no one could do that job alone. I have a great staff. I have 3,600 people. Help. I got great elected officials work with with me to make sure we get things done.
“And Donald Payne was one of them, Donald Payne Jr. One of the things I got to thank him, Donald Payne Sr. and Donald Payne Jr., is that they gave me Bill Payne, who’s been with me. The reason they gave me Bill Payne: he wanted to make sure that I was going to do the things that I said I was going to do when I ran for County Exec. Right. Bill? You’re consistent. But today is a great day. That man is a great man. It was never about money. It was never about power. It was about doing the right thing. Know what the right thing was? Helping people. Everyone. And that’s what he’s done his entire life. You know, we’re going to do something special for him in the county, like I’ve done for everybody else who made things go well and did great jobs. But we’ll celebrate it then, and I’ll have a lot more to say. But it was a long program. I was the last. Thank God I was the last. Now we’re going to hear from the family. Thank you all very much.”