Christopher Harrison Payne (September 7, 1845 – December 5, 1925) was a religious, educational, and political leader of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Born in the American South during the time of slavery, Payne rose to a level of prominence achieved by few, regardless of race.

He was able to return home in 1864[4] and begin formal education for the first time after the war by attending night school while working as a farmhand during the day.

Payne used these venues to pursue equality between the races as well as to encourage Black people to improve their circumstances through education and the purchase of their land and homes.

Instead, he was appointed Deputy Collector for the United States Internal Revenue Service in Charleston, West Virginia.

[8] Due to his faithful service to the Republican Party, in 1903 United States President Theodore Roosevelt named Payne as Consul General to the Danish West Indies, a rare appointment for an African American at that time.

His youngest son and namesake, Christopher Hansen Payne (1881–1914), graduated from Howard University and received a medical degree.