"What's the difference between Marion Barry's brain and a chainsaw? With a chainsaw, you can actually hear the buzz." - The Washington Post

Marion S. Barry, Jr. was a four-term mayor of Washington, DC during the 1980s and 1990s. He is paradoxically the most beloved and the most detested person to ever hold that office. Barry is lauded for his efforts to alleviate political and racial troubles in the nation's capital, and is criticized for leaving the city's budget in a sorry state. However, Marion Barry's skill or lack thereof at forging public policy has long been overshadowed by an act that granted him eternal notoriety - in 1990, the FBI videotaped Barry smoking crack in a hotel room with an undercover narc. After being stripped of his office and serving a six month federal sentence, Barry was miraculously reelected as DC mayor in 1994.

The Early Years

Marion Barry was born in Itta Bena, Mississippi in 1936 to a working class African American family. Life in a small town on the Delta involved pervasive racial discrimination with little possibility for social or economic advancement. These factors, in combination with growing marital strife between his parents, led Barry's mother to pack up the family and move to Memphis in 1940. Marion Barry attended high school and college there, and went on to pursue a graduate degree in chemistry at Fisk University in Nashville.

Barry's career as a chemist was not to be, however, as he became involved in the Civil Rights Movement during the late 1950s and early 1960s. He participated in various demonstrations in Tennessee before helping to found the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, serving as the SNCC's first chairman. In 1965, Marion Barry moved to Washington, DC to establish a local chapter of the SNCC in the capital city.

From Dashiki to Armani

During the 1960s, Marion Barry became known in DC as both a civil rights activist and an increasingly powerful political force. Unlike many local politicians, Barry did not cater to the wealthy suburbanites, but drew support from the impoverished ghettos of the Southeast quadrant of the city. In 1971, he hung up his title as an activist to officially pitch into the political fray as first a school board member and then as a city councilman. Though his views tended to antagonize whites and alienate the black middle class, it wasn't long before inner city residents began to regard him as a local hero. This image was greatly enhanced by a 1977 incident in which Marion Barry took a bullet near his heart when radical Black Muslim terrorists laid siege to the District Building.

In 1978, Marion Barry won the mayoral election. DC was ripe for the likes of Barry, due to an unusual set of circumstances that had long plagued the city. As the capital of the United States, the District of Columbia is not part of any individual state, but exists as a separate entity altogether. Residents must pay federal taxes, but aside from a non-voting shadow representative, DC does not have federal representation in Congress. Many of the more affluent Washingtonians have moved outside of the city's fixed borders to the suburbs in Maryland and Virginia. These commuters use the city's resources on a daily basis, but pay income tax to the government of their state of residence. The population within the confines of DC is more than 65% black and largely low income, but the city is the political center for a bunch of rich old white guys. The combination of these factors caused much political strife, financial woes, and racial tension, an atmosphere in which Marion Barry thrived.

Barry immediately set about making good on his campaign promises to end the city's financial troubles and bring pride back to DC. He began by sponsoring a referendum for granting DC statehood. In an effort to take the power out of the suburbs and bring it back into the city, he pushed a series of laws through the District Council that gave preferential treatment to DC residents who applied for positions as city employees. Barry partially balanced the city budget by greatly reducing spending while increasing revenue from property taxes, as well as requesting additional aid from the federal government. He dealt with the racial question by fostering a climate friendly to African American businesses.

For a time, Marion Barry was DC's golden boy, but his administration was not without difficulties. His bid for statehood fell flat in Congress, and congressional leaders began to regard him as a pesky nuisance with his constant requests for financial aid. Barry cut funding for education, and the District's already ailing public school system plummeted in quality to become one of the worst in the nation. The DC police department was rocked by scandal, corruption, and criticisms of incompetence as the city's rate of violent crime skyrocketed to alarming levels. The new income that allowed Barry to balance the budget was based almost entirely on the real estate boom of the mid-1980s - when property prices began to decline, the budget collapsed and left the city with an even bigger debt than it had before. Nevertheless, Barry's popularity continued to rise, and he was reelected to two more terms in landslide victories.

Scandal and Cocaine and Whores, Oh My

From the very beginning of the Barry years in DC, Marion Barry's administration was plagued by scandals and rumors. His womanizing and partying prowess was legendary. Though Barry paid lip service to the importance of black family, he was often seen in compromising situations with women while his wife stayed at home. Reporters spotted Barry frequenting the residence of a local model who had a 3-year-old son who Barry may or may not have fathered. A few years later, Marion Barry took a Caribbean vacation with a mysterious woman who was definitely not his wife. When questioned about his marital infidelity, Barry blew it off by saying that the women were simply "family friends."

When he wasn't busy cavorting on white sand beaches with one of his mistresses, Marion Barry was back home dancing and drugging the night away in one of DC's numerous nightclubs. There were a plethora of allegations linking Barry to cocaine use - averaging out to several mini-scandals a year stretching back to 1980. However, when the authorities investigated these incidents, witnesses invariably refused to cooperate. It seems the allegations always fell just short of being substantial enough to warrant an indictment. Marion Barry's demeanor when making public appearances further fueled the widespread rumors of the mayor's drug use. At press conferences, Barry was often wild-eyed and jittery, and prone to saying the most outlandish things. These quotes, collectively known as Barryisms, provided ample fodder for late night comedians.

For example, when Barry was questioned about the city's escalating murder rate, he stated, "When you take out the killings, Washington actually has a very low crime rate," and subsequently promised residents "a police car on every sidewalk." He criticized the law of gravity for being racist, and claimed that "more than 100%" of the soldiers who died in Vietnam were black. He had a rather inflated sense of self-importance, referring to himself as an "international symbol" and stating, "I am a great mayor. I am an upstanding Christian man. I am an intelligent man. I am a deeply educated man. I am a humble man." To be fair, I must note that Barry has since denied making many of these statements. There is, however, one particularly infamous Barryism that he cannot escape, because it was caught on tape. On the evening of January 18, 1990, while facing a squad of FBI agents, crack pipe in hand, Marion Barry bitterly exclaimed, "Bitch set me up!"

The bitch in question is Rasheeda Moore, a model and one of those purported "family friends." In 1989, the FBI, tired of standing by idly while Barry used cocaine with relative impunity, decided to start an undercover investigation. Moore was a longtime girlfriend who Barry had been seeing on and off for years. While she was living in California, the FBI approached her regarding a sting operation against the mayor, and she agreed to help them. She moved out to DC and rekindled her relationship with Barry. To avoid the specter of entrapment, the FBI carefully instructed Moore not to coax the mayor into breaking the law or to use any cocaine herself - she was simply to provide a means of surveillance. Over the span of several months, the FBI collected a great deal of evidence regarding Marion Barry's cocaine habit, but they wanted to have an airtight case against him before moving in to strike. Therefore, that fateful January day, they rigged a room at the International Vista Hotel with hidden video cameras and instructed Moore to invite Barry over for a little fun.

The FBI videotape, which would quickly fall into the hands of local and national news agencies and be broadcast endlessly for several weeks, shows Barry sitting on the hotel bed while Rasheeda Moore occupies a nearby chair. Barry holds a crack pipe in his hand, offering it first to Moore, who declines, stating that she would smoke it after he was finished. Barry takes a moment to reach out and fondle one of Moore's breasts before lighting up and taking two massive hits off the pipe. A minute later, armed FBI agents kicked in the hotel room door and arrested Marion Barry for possession of cocaine.

Barry's trial, predictably, was a media circus. He was indicted on 14 charges for incidents that stretched back to 1988 (as dictated by the statute of limitations). The charges included possession of cocaine, conspiracy to possess cocaine, and perjury for lying about his cocaine use at earlier grand jury hearings. Barry admitted to "occasionally" using cocaine, but denied that it was ever anything more than experimentation (later, some of his former staff members went public with their stories - from 1987 onwards, he used the drug on a daily basis, both in its powdered form and in crack rock, and was often incapacitated during working hours). 13 of the counts resulted in a hung jury, but Barry was convicted of one count of possession of cocaine. Strangely, this conviction was not for the Rasheeda Moore scandal, but for an incident in November 1989, where another one of Barry's girlfriends, Doris Crenshaw, testified that Barry had spent three days using cocaine with her at the Mayflower Hotel. It was a misdemeanor crime and Barry's first offense, but because of the high profile of the case and the fact that Barry was tried in a federal court, he was sentenced to six months in jail.

The Comeback Kid

In October 1990, after Marion Barry donned his day-glo orange prison uniform and was trucked to a federal detention facility, most people assumed that his political career was at an end. Barry could not be discounted that easily, though. An adulterer and addict he may be, but he is also an incredibly savvy politician.

After his release, Marion Barry laid low for a while. His public appearances were rare, and always carefully orchestrated. He did very little public speaking, limited his appearances to charitable fundraisers and other politically safe causes, and was seldom seen without his wife by his side. In 1992, with an uncharacteristic minimum of fanfare, Barry was elected to a seat on the District Council. Having procured this position, Barry went about engineering a return to the mayoral office for the 1994 election year. At the time, most Washingtonians scoffed at the notion.

Marion Barry had an unwitting ally in his successor, Sharon Pratt Kelly, who had handily won the 1990 election based largely on her Barry-bashing campaign speeches and promises of fiscal reform. By 1992, Kelly was almost universally reviled by her constituents. The city budget collapse, which was undoubtedly the long term result of Barry's own financial mismanagement (several of his staffers were investigated for fraud and misappropriation of funds) had nevertheless occurred during the first year of Kelly's administration. While Barry had few friends in Congress, Kelly had some outright enemies. She was accused of withholding and falsifying information about the city's finances during congressional hearings. At press conferences, Kelly seemed evasive and cold, and, deserved or not, she soon earned a reputation as an icy, power-hungry bitch. While none of Sharon Pratt Kelly's misdeeds even approached the magnitude of Marion Barry's transgressions, Barry had a certain charisma that Kelly lacked. It was not long before Barry supporters began to crawl out of the political woodwork.

Marion Barry shrewdly rebuilt his base of power in the poorer sections of DC. He admitted to his former cocaine use, but in doing so, cunningly painted himself as a victim of the costly and unsuccessful war on drugs. He played the racial card for all it was worth, often citing the statistic that every year, DC puts more African American men in prison for drug-related charges than it graduates from the city's public high schools. By manipulating his public image as a strong black leader who had been viciously persecuted by The Man, Marion Barry easily swayed many of the city's residents to his side. He convinced voters who might have otherwise stayed home on Election Day to show up at the polls and vote Barry. As a result, Barry received 58% of the vote, hardly a landslide (in some of his earlier runs for the office, he had received a whopping 80% of the voters' support), but more than enough to win him a fourth term.

In Marion Barry's absence, the nature of the mayor's role in DC politics had been radically altered. When Barry was in his heyday during the 1980s, he was able to micromanage the city's budget and easily push legislation through the city council. After his conviction and Sharon Pratt Kelly's weirdness regarding DC's finances, Congress stepped in and transferred the bulk of this power to the District Financial Control Board, leaving the mayor with a set of largely ceremonial duties. For the first few years of his fourth term, Marion Barry railed against this change in the power structure of DC politics, calling it a "rape of democracy." In late 1997, however, he abruptly retracted his strong rhetoric, at least temporarily, stating that the congressional control of DC's politics and finances no longer bothered him.

His change of heart can likely be attributed to the surfacing of yet more scandals. The head of Barry's sizable security detail wrote an internal memo stating that Marion Barry's frequent and lengthy visits to the private residences of young single women had placed his retinue of bodyguards in "unethical or immoral" situations. This memo was leaked to the press, and a few months later in mid-1998, Barry announced that he would not seek a fifth term in office. After delivering a bitter invective against Congress, stating that they sought to "break the spirit of our people and recolonize our souls," Marion Barry announced that he was leaving the realm of electoral politics altogether.

You Can't Teach an Old Dog New Tricks

Since Marion Barry stepped down from his position as mayor, he continues to reside in Washington, DC, but maintains a relatively low profile. In recent years, however, several incidents have launched him back into the local news. In April 2001, Barry received a year's probation after pleading guilty to second degree assault charges. Several months earlier, a female janitor at BWI airport was mopping the floor of one of the men's restrooms when Barry allegedly burst through the door, shoved the woman against a wall, and dropped his pants while making lewd comments. Although Marion Barry decided to accept a plea bargain, he still publicly proclaims his innocence, explaining that his prostate surgery has made frequent and unexpected urination a fact of life, and that he was simply trying to reach a urinal before he wet his pants. When questioned about the woman's claim that Barry's actions were sexual in nature, he responded, "I know I'm right; God knows I'm right."

In March 2002, just weeks after announcing that he was coming out of retirement to pursue a seat on the city council in the upcoming election, Barry made it into the local news once again. Late one night, an officer with the DC Park Police noticed a Jaguar conspicuously parked on the Potomac waterfront. The single occupant of the car appeared to be ingesting something suspicious. When the officer took a flashlight over to investigate, he found Marion Barry sitting in the driver's seat with a "white powdery substance" under his nose. Field tests on the car indicated traces of marijuana and cocaine (including a $5 crack rock in the glove compartment), but in such small amounts that they did not warrant an arrest. The powder on Barry's face was not tested. After accusing the police of entrapment and racial profiling and demanding a public apology from Mayor Anthony Williams, Barry withdrew from the campaign.

Although he officially announced his retirement from politics twice over the past decade, Marion Barry was elected to a seat on the city council in September 2004. Barry ousted incumbent Sandy Allen (who coincidentally served as Barry's campaign manager in the past) in the race to represent Ward 8, the poorest ward in Washington, DC. Barry comfortably won the election with 57% of the vote, compared to Allen's paltry 25%. When questioned about his victorious return to elected office, Barry reportedly waggled his finger at the press while chanting, "I told you so. I told you so."

On the evening of January 2, 2006, Marion Barry called the DCPD to report that he had been robbed in the kitchen of his home in Anacostia. According to Barry, the two assailants had helped him carry bags of groceries up to his apartment before returning fifteen minutes later to rob him of his wallet at gunpoint. Barry immediately held a press conference to announce that he would not seek charges against the perpetrators, but advised that they turn themselves in to the police anyway. He expressed surprise at being the target of such an incident, stating, "There is a sort of an unwritten code in Washington, among the underworld and the hustlers and these other guys, that I am their friend ... I was a little hurt that this betrayal did happen." Following the incident, there was widespread (but unsubstantiated) speculation that the robbers were, in fact, Barry's cocaine dealers. The assailants were never arrested.

In 2007, Marion Barry once again faced the possibility of incarceration, this time for tax evasion. On October 28, 2005, after a lengthy probing by the IRS, Barry pled guilty to two federal misdemeanor charges stemming from the fact that Barry had failed to file tax returns for the period between 1999 and 2004, and, in fact, had not paid any federal or local income tax after leaving the mayoral office in January 1999. In return for the guilty plea, Barry received 3 years probation. The conditions of his probation included filing annual local and federal tax returns on time, working with the court to determine a payment schedule for the $246,000 in back taxes that he still owed, and submitting to periodic drug testing and addiction counseling (as Barry had failed a mandatory drug test administered by the court after entering into the plea bargain). Barry did not fulfill any of these obligations, and so, in early 2007, prosecutors filed a request to revoke his probation. After several months of legal wrangling as to the legality of the request, a judge declined to revoke Barry's probation.

Marion Barry is once again in hot water for failure to file his tax return for 2007. He finally filed in February 2009, but not before prosecutors submitted a similar request to revoke his probation. Instead, the judge extended the terms of Barry's probation until May 2011. Barry blamed his failure to file his taxes on his recent bout of health problems, which ultimately culminated in a kidney transplant on February 20, 2009.

On July 4, 2009, Marion Barry was arrested for stalking a woman in Anacostia Park. Details are scanty as the story is still developing.

73-year-old Barry continues to serve as representative for Ward 8 on the city council.

Sources:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/local/longterm/library/dc/barry/barry.htm
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/local/longterm/tours/scandal/barry.htm
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A21623-2004Sep14_3.html
http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/lips/bios/barrybio.html
http://www.nationalcenter.org/NVWilsonBarry698.html
http://www.cnn.com/2002/ALLPOLITICS/03/24/marion.barry/
http://www.dclibrary.org/sdc/
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/03/AR2006010300279.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/09/AR2006030900848.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/07/AR2007030702187.html
http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/07/05/marion.barry.arrested/