Livingston, NJ - Donald Payne, New Jersey’s first and so far only black congressman and a leading advocate for democracy in Africa during 23 years in the U.S. House of Representatives, has died. He was 77.

He died today at St. Barnabas Medical Center in Livingston, New Jersey, of complications from colon cancer, his office said.

The senior member of New Jersey’s House delegation, Payne represented the 10th congressional district, which includes parts of Newark, Jersey City and Elizabeth, the state’s urban core across the Hudson River from New York City, as well as suburbs including Maplewood and Millburn. He was a longtime member of House committees that oversee education and foreign affairs, and a former chairman of the foreign affairs subcommittee on Africa.

Payne “earned respect around the world for his outspoken advocacy on behalf of human rights and the worth and dignity of every person,” House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi said in a statement.

On one of his many trips to the African continent, a 2009 visit to Somalia after a U.S. advisory against Americans visiting there, Payne narrowly escaped a mortar attack in the capital, Mogadishu. Islamist insurgents took responsibility for the attack on the Mogadishu airport as Payne was leavin.

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