Councilman L.O. Payne's All Female Basketball Team

In 1935, Lawrence O. Payne was running for reelection to the Cleveland City Council. He sponsored a women’s basketball team in the area, donning them in uniforms with “PAYNE FOR COUNCIL” plastered on the front.

Lawrence O Payne, (1892 - 1959), a black lawyer and politician was born in Columbus, Ohio, the son of Robert and Madaline (Wittington) Payne. During WW I he served in the Army in France and came to Cleveland after the war. Graduating from Cleveland Preparatory School (1922) he received a LL.B. from John Marshall Law School in 1923. Payne was admitted to the Ohio bar and appointed Cleveland's first African American assistant police prosecutor. Payne was appointed to the State Parole Board in 1938; and in 1940, with William O. Walker, formed P. W. Publishing Co., publishing the Cleveland Call & Post. Payne resigned from the Parole Board in 1945 and returned to private practice. In 1924 he married Maybelle Cross. They had no children. Payne died in Cleveland in 1959.

Sources: Photographed by African American photographer, Allen E Cole, Reflections in Black: A History of Black Photographers 1840 to the Present by Deborah Willis; Encyclopedia of Cleveland