We Stand Together: Patricia ‘Pat’ Payne, IPS Racial Equity Office director

INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — Patricia Payne has spent her entire career — since the 1960s — teaching children at Indianapolis Public Schools.

She’s been fighting for racial equality since the beginning, when she noticed that her textbooks didn’t reflect her students.

As she now leads the district’s Racial Equity Office, she says central Indiana has a lot of catching up to do, and that she’ll keep fighting for children.

She’s asking for the people of central Indiana to value those who walk beside them, “to not only see us as human, but work with us as human.” And not just to open racial equity offices, “but to understand why there’s a need for them.”

News 8’s David Williams shares her story.