13 Things To Know About The Life And Career Of Powerful D.C. Mayor Marion Barry
Before his death in 2014 at age 78, Washington D.C. Mayor Marion Barry Jr. was a force to be reckoned with.
His obituary in The Washington Post described him as the most influential and savvy local politician of his generation.
Here are 13 things to know about the life and career of Marion Barry, the formidable local leader of the nation’s capital.
1. Son of Sharecroppers
Marion Barry Jr. was born March 6, 1936 in Itta Bena, Mississippi to Marion Barry Sr. and Mattie Cummings, a family of sharecroppers. Mattie was 17 when her son was born. She eventually fled the difficult life and remarried.
Barry Jr. worked a variety of jobs over the course of his childhood. An incident at one of those jobs would spark his civil rights activism.
2. Civil Rights Activist
In an oral history interview, Barry revealed how he began his civil rights activism early when he worked delivering newspapers. His employer failed to live up to a promise to send paperboys who got 15 new customers on a trip to New Orleans.
Because he and his peers were Black, the newspaper said it couldn’t send them to segregated New Orleans and it couldn’t afford two buses. Barry decided to boycott his paper route until his employer agreed to send the boys to St. Louis instead, which wasn’t segregated.
Barry spent the rest of his life advocating for a more just and equitable society for Black and underserved people. He was president of the student NAACP chapter at LeMoyne College in Memphis, where he earned his bachelor’s degree in chemistry. He led the first sit-ins in Nashville after graduating with his master’s degree in chemistry from Fisk University.
Barry was also the first national chairman on the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). He served on the school board and his activism informed many of his policies in D.C.
3. Arrested for drug use and spent time in jail
Barry was arrested in 1990 on drug charges during an FBI sting after accompanying one of his former flames to a Washington hotel room.
He infamously said, “Bitch set me up … I shouldn’t have come here.” He was convicted months later and served six months in federal prison. He also completed a drug rehab program.
4. Marion Barry was elected to four terms as D.C. mayor
Barry spent nearly half a century in D.C. politics and was dubbed “Mayor for Life.” He was elected to four terms as D.C. mayor. He was elected for his fourth term after serving a prison sentence.
“Who can better help our city recover than someone who himself has gone through recovery?” Barry had asked when he was running for office after being released from prison. Voters agreed.
Barry was also a D.C. city councilman.
5. Resilient in the face of obstacles
After his fall from grace in 1990, Barry made what some thought was an impossible comeback. He was reelected mayor of D.C. for his fourth term and he remained active in politics for years thereafter.
Despite facing racism, poverty, drug addiction, several failed marriages and harsh criticism throughout his life, Barry always managed to get back up. He was resilient, and to many that made him even more relevant.
6. Champion for poor and working-class
Coming from a very poor childhood, Barry understood intimately what it was like to struggle financially. Under his leadership, D.C. created programs to help provide summer jobs for youths, home-buying assistance for working-class residents and food for senior citizens.
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7. Marion Barry appointed many Black people to mid-and high-level positions
Barry placed African Americans in thousands of middle- and upper-level management positions in the city government that in previous generations had been reserved for whites, according to the Washington Post.
“He was really the architect of creating a local government infrastructure in the early days of home rule,” Frederick D. Cooke Jr., Barry’s longtime friend and attorney, told the Post in 2014. “He helped it to diversify to be more inclusive. It had been a stilted, segregated entity, and he made it possible for people to believe they could have a seat at the table.”
8. Shot by radical Black Muslims
On March 9, 1977, Barry was shot by a group of radical Black Hanafi Muslims during a siege in which a group of 12 took over three buildings, including the John A. Wilson building where the D.C. city council was housed, and held 150 hostages.
The Hanafis demanded justice for members of the Nation of Islam who’d killed women and children at the home of their leader, Hamaas Abdul Khaalis. Yhe sentences those involved received wasn’t satisfactory to them.
Barry wasn’t the mayor at the time, but a city councilman. He was hit by a bullet that ricocheted while the Hanafis were firing outside the chambers.but wasn’t the intended target. He was hospitalized, but fortunately the wound was superficial so he made a full recovery.
9. Subject to harsh criticism
While Barry was loved by the D.C.’s Black community and was a star to the poor and working classes, he was also subject to immense criticism.
During his tenure, D.C. still had high crime and unemployment rates, poor test scores, high dropout rates, high infant mortality and other problems.
FBI agent and Washington lawyer Carl T. Rowan Jr. wrote a scathing critique of Barry: “Patronage, in the guise of local ‘empowerment,’ has always been the hallmark of Barry’s governing philosophy,” Rowan wrote.
However, Barry felt he’d done a reasonable job serving the city. “I’ve had … more homers, more doubles, more triples than I’ve had strikeouts. More ups than downs,” Barry said.
10. Sworn in by Thurgood Marshall for mayoral 1st term
After defeating an incumbent and well-known opponent, Barry was sworn-in as mayor of D.C. by Thurgood Marshall, the first Black person to serve as a U.S. Supreme Court justice.
11. Married 4 times
Known to have a penchant for women, Barry was married four times, divorced three times, and was separated from his last wife.
12. Stripped of authority to control D.C.’s finances
In 1999, a Congressional board found Barry had mismanaged city funding and stripped him of his authority to control the city’s finances.
13. Died in 2014
When Barry died in 2014 at age 78, his cause of death was listed as hypertensive cardiovascular disease, with kidney disease and diabetes contributing.
He was survived by his fourth wife, Cora Masters Barry and his only son, Marion Christopher Barry.