Dr. Payton received the B.A. degree with honors from South Carolina State University in 1955; the B.D. degree from Harvard University in 1958; the M.A. degree from Columbia University in 1960; and the Ph.D. degree from Yale University in 1963.
Survivors include one son, Mark Steven (Christiane) Payton; one daughter, Deborah Elizabeth Payton; four grandchildren, Danielle Marie, Maya Elizabeth, William Isaac and Nicholas Warren Payton; and three brothers and three sisters. He was preceded in death by his wife, Thelma Plane Payton, in 2013, and by two of his brothers, Leroy Oscar Payton and James Israel Payton, in 1998 and 1999, respectively.
Funeral services will be held on Sunday, October 9, 2016, at 1:00 p.m. in the Tuskegee University Chapel. The family hour will be held on Saturday, October 8, 2016 at 7:00 p.m. at Peoples Funeral Home in Tuskegee, Alabama.
“Tuskegee University is deeply saddened at the loss of the university’s 5th President, Dr. Benjamin F. Payton. Our thoughts and prayers are with his family and the entire Tuskegee University community,” said 7th president Dr. Brian L. Johnson.
