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  Barry, Jr., Marion S.
CANDIDATE DETAILS
AffiliationDemocratic  
<-  2009-01-01  
 
NameMarion S. Barry, Jr.
Address
Washington, District of Columbia , United States
EmailNone
WebsiteNone
Born March 06, 1936
DiedNovember 23, 2014 (78 years)
Contributornystate63
Last ModifedJuan Croniqueur
May 28, 2023 09:41pm
Tags Black - Imprisoned -
InfoBorn in Itta Bena, Miss., in 1936, Barry likes to invoke his Mississippi Delta roots. But his family, without his father, moved to Memphis when Barry was four. He grew up there, where he graduated from high school and LeMoyne College. He got his first taste for public confrontation and media notoriety during the city's 1958 bus desegregation drive. He subsequently abandoned graduate studies in chemistry at Nashville's Fisk University to join the civil rights movement full-time. Barry was elected the first chairman of SNCC (Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee) and came to Washington in 1965 to open up a local chapter. He never left, and became the most dominant politician in the nation's capital since Boss Shepherd 100 years earlier.
Barry moved easily from 1960s street demonstrations into 1970s elective politics, switching from dashiki to business suit to fit his political needs. Barry served on the city's first elected school board (including a stint as Board president), and the first elected city council, and, in 1978, became the second person ever elected mayor in D.C. He held that office for 12 years, until his 1990 drug arrest and misdemeanor conviction in a highly charged trial forced him to step down.

After serving a six-month federal prison term, Barry reclaimed the office in 1994. But in 1995, early into his fourth term, Congress stripped Barry of most of his power, handing leadership of nine city agencies to a control board. In May 1998 Barry announced he wouldn't run again and in January 1999 handed the seal of the District of Columbia to incoming mayor Anthony A. Williams, who had been his CFO. This seemed to signal the end of the Barry era. But less than eight months later, rumors began circulating that Barry would seek an at-large council seat. Barry quashed them the following June, announcing that rather than seek office again, he'd devote his energies to reducing violence in the District (a year later, he'd seemingly done little toward that aim). But the rumors of 1999 became fact a few years later: In 2002, he campaigned for an at-large council spot. His attempt ended in mini-scandal: Late one night in March of that year, US Park Police found Barry idling his Jaguar at Buzzard Point in Southwest. Barry reportedly swallowed something as a US Park Police officer approached and had a powdery substance under his nose. Drug dogs sniffed out trace amounts of crack and marijuana in his car. He bowed out of the race in early April.

To his constituents, the flamboyant Barry is beloved as a jobs provider; to his critics, he is blamed for a bloated, inefficient bureaucracy that virtually bankrupted the city in the 1990s. Barry has acknowledged his addictions to cocaine, alcohol, and sex, and he turned his recovery into a political asset in his 1994 comeback. He has not admitted his addiction to the media, and to power.

The man known as the Mayor-for-Life has enjoyed a better reception in the private sector than he had in Congress: He's done lobbying work for a private-prison company and consulted on municipal bonds for an investment-banking firm.




JOB APPROVAL POLLS
DateFirmApproveDisapproveDon't Know
08/19/2010-08/26/2010 Washington Post/ABC News 35.00% ( 0.0) 52.00% ( 0.0) 14.00% ( 0.0)

BOOKS
Title Purchase Contributor

EVENTS
Start Date End Date Type Title Contributor

NEWS
Date Category Headline Article Contributor
Apr 05, 2012 01:00pm News Marion Barry Comment Critical of Asian Business Owners  Article RBH 
Nov 07, 2011 10:00pm News Marion Barry eyes his son as D.C. Council successor  Article RBH 
Jul 05, 2009 01:20pm News D.C.'s Marion Barry arrested again  Article COSDem 
May 05, 2009 02:00pm News [Marion] Barry Warns of "Civil War" Over Gay Marriage  Article The Sunset Provision 
Feb 11, 2009 06:15am News Prosecutors: Jail ex-D.C. mayor Barry over taxes  Article kal 
Jan 11, 2006 10:00am News [Marion] Barry Tested Positive for Cocaine Use In the Fall  Article ScottĀ³ 

DISCUSSION
Importance? 7.50000 Average

FAMILY
Wife Cora Masters Barry 00, 1994- 00, 2003
Son Marion Christopher Barry 1980-2016
Mother In-Law Isabell Masters 1913-2011

INFORMATION LINKS
RACES
  11/06/2012 DC Council Ward 8 Won 87.98% (+76.38%)
  04/03/2012 DC Council Ward 8 - D Primary Won 73.20% (+64.60%)
  11/04/2008 DC Council Ward 8 Won 91.58% (+87.33%)
  09/09/2008 DC Council Ward 8 - D Primary Won 78.01% (+66.90%)
  11/02/2004 DC Council Ward 8 Won 94.96% (+90.75%)
  09/14/2004 DC Council Ward 8 - D Primary Won 57.23% (+32.28%)
  11/08/1994 DC Mayor Won 56.02% (+14.15%)
  09/13/1994 DC Mayor - D Primary Won 47.18% (+10.38%)
  11/03/1992 DC Council Ward 8 Won 89.75% (+83.98%)
  09/15/1992 DC Council Ward 8 - D Primary Won 69.77% (+49.33%)
  11/06/1990 DC Council - At-Large Lost 20.16% (-18.36%)
  11/04/1986 DC Mayor Won 61.20% (+28.06%)
  09/09/1986 DC Mayor - D Primary Won 70.59% (+51.07%)
  09/09/1986 DC Mayor - DCS Primary Lost 9.86% (-37.52%)
  11/02/1982 DC Mayor Won 82.15% (+67.88%)
  09/14/1982 DC Mayor - D Primary Won 58.02% (+22.51%)
  11/07/1978 DC Mayor Won 70.16% (+42.07%)
  09/12/1978 DC Mayor - D Primary Won 34.65% (+1.65%)
  11/02/1976 DC Council - At-Large Won 52.63% (+25.81%)
  11/05/1974 DC Council - At-Large Won 16.78% (-0.03%)
  09/10/1974 DC Council - At-Large - D Primary Won 24.65% (+5.10%)
ENDORSEMENTS
DC Mayor - D Primary - Sep 14, 2010 D Vincent C. Gray
DC Shadow Representative - D Primary - Sep 14, 2010 D Nate Bennett-Fleming
DC Council - At-Large - Nov 04, 2008 D Michael A. Brown
DC US President - D Primary - Feb 12, 2008 D Barack Obama
DC Council Chairman - D Primary - Sep 12, 2006 D Vincent C. Gray
DC Mayor - D Primary - Sep 10, 2002 D Willie F. Wilson
DC Council - At-Large - Nov 03, 1998 Umoja Mark Thompson
DC US President - D Primary - May 01, 1984 D Jesse L. Jackson