Carolyn Robertson Payton (May 13, 1925 – April 11, 2001) was appointed Director of the United States Peace Corps in 1977 by President Jimmy Carter.

[1] Payton's father enrolled her at Bennett College in Greensboro, North Carolina, in 1941 majoring in home economics and graduated in 1945.

[2] Payton said that Bennett, a small historically Black women's college, shaped her aspirations, attitudes, and expectations and gave her a sense of her capabilities as a woman.

[2] Payton began her first job as an instructor in psychology at Livingstone College in Salisbury, North Carolina in 1948 and worked there for five years.

[2] Payton started at the Peace Corps as a field assignment officer in 1964[3] helping prepare trainees to serve in West Africa.

Brown wanted to "send volunteers for short periods to developing countries and then bring back the skills they had learned to fight poverty in the United States".

"[2] After Payton's resignation, President Carter issued an executive order taking the Peace Corps out from under ACTION and making it a fully autonomous agency.

In 1981, she spoke about the contribution that volunteers had made around the world, "I think the whole idea of Peace Corps was brought home to me most recently last summer, when there was a terribly damaging hurricane in the Caribbean.

She has provided leadership on ethical and consumer issues in psychology and in eliminating sex bias in psychotherapeutic practice...her commitment to equality and justice for all oppressed peoples has made a precious difference in all our lives.

"[1] In 1997, Payton received the APA Award for Outstanding Lifetime Contribution to Psychology for her "dedication to using psychology to promote better cross-cultural understanding and to end social injustice by influencing political process...[Her] success in overcoming gender and racial barriers to achieve positions of leadership and prestige make [her] a role model to women and ethnic minorities everywhere.