Paying it Forward

My name is Rene Watkins Payne, and I am a product of the Civil Rights era of the 1960s. My parents were actively involved in the movement toward desegregation and the passing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. My father served as a delegate at the 1963 March on Washington, where more than 250,000 people (black, white, privileged, and poor) came together in Washington, DC. As a family, we were exposed to ethnically and religiously diverse organizers with a common goal of equality and justice. It is embodied as a value rooted in social consciousness throughout my career as a designer to understand the needs and complexities of our humanness and the obligation to pay it forward.