Bandung Conference
During Payne's twenty-five year career with "The Chicago Defender", she covered several key events in the Civil Rights Movement, including the Montgomery bus boycott and desegregation at the University of Alabama in 1956, as well as the 1963 March on Washington. She and the African American author Richard Wright attended the 1955 Bandung Conference, and Wright showcased some of his exchanges with her in his 1956 book "The Color Curtain: A Report on the Bandung Conference".