Mayor For Life
The Maundy Monday Newsletter - This Week in History November 18 - 24.
He was born in 1936 in a small Mississippi town known for being a trading center for plantations. He was the third child of a sharecropper father who died when he was four, and his mother moved him to Memphis, Tennessee.
While growing up in Memphis, he picked cotton, just like his father, whom he was named after. He worked odd jobs, waited tables, and delivered newspapers. He worked his way up the Boy Scouts and earned the distinction of Eagle Scout.
He eventually attended LeMoyne College and joined the student chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, where he became its president his senior year. He earned a chemistry degree in 1958.
He moved to Nashville and earned a master's degree in organic chemistry from Frisk University. In 1960, he was elected the first chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), an organization of activists helping with voter registration drives in places like his hometown in the Deep South.
In 1965, he moved to Washington, D.C., to open an SNCC office to help the city, which had a majority black population but no representation or self-government. In the aftermath of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s assassination, riots broke out. He organized food drives and drove trucks all over the city, delivering food, medicine, and other goods to the poor.
He became President of the Washington, DC, School Board in 1972. He was elected to the first City Council two years later when Home Rule was established. He was shot in the chest in 1977 when radical Muslims broke into the City Building.
In 1978, he became the second mayor of Washington, DC.
He would go on to have a complicated legacy. His first term saw the creation of a sanitation department and a summer jobs program. He worked to rehabilitate public housing. But he filled the DC government with loyalists, and corruption reigned. He ran the city’s finances into the ground, cut the police budget, and saw violence increase.
His popularity began to wane when his third term began in 1986. His addiction to alcohol, cocaine, and women began to become more public. In 1988 and 1989, Washington, DC, set records in homicides as gangs killed each other over the crack epidemic.
In 1990, he was caught on tape smoking crack in a hotel room and was arrested by the FBI and DC Police. His former girlfriend was an informant, and during his arrest, he said, “The bitch set me up…”
He served six months in federal prison.
He returned to the DC City Council in 1992, representing Ward 8, which sits across the Anacostia River, separated from the rest of the city's wealthy, more affluent parts. In 1994, he ran for Mayor again, won, and served until 1999.
The following year, he returned to Ward 8 and the Council. His legal and personal troubles continued to mount. In 2005, he pleaded guilty to charges from an IRS investigation. During his mandated drug test, he tested positive for alcohol, cocaine, and marijuana.
During all this, he still advocated for the people who loved him.
The people of Ward 8 kept him in office until November 23, 2014, when he passed away from heart disease.
Marion Barry was 78.
But he was Mayor For Life.
Okay, let's highlight what else happened this week. As a reminder, these events celebrate their anniversary, ending in 5 or 0. Here's what I got:
1. Universal Children's Day debuted on November 20, 1959. The United Nations declared that children had rights. In 1960, children declared they would stay up late and eat ice cream every night. I guess you shouldn’t tell your kids about this day; they might get the wrong impression.
2. The US Embassy in Pakistan burned down on November 21, 1979. A mob of college students descended on the US embassy inspired by the lie of their leader, Iranian religious cleric Ruhollah Kohmomeini. The lie was a mosque in Saudi Arabia had been seized by the United States and Israel. Four people died, including two Americans, in the 24-hour standoff. This is a lesson that fiery rhetoric can lead to actual fires.
3. On the Origin of Species was published on November 24, 1859. Penned by English Biologist Charles Darwin, the book introduced the theory that humans have evolved and weren’t just dropped into a garden by God on the sixth day of creation. In case you are wondering, my employer holds no official position on evolution; they only care that God created all of it, but they do teach evolution in pretty much any educational setting.
I had a few great interactions with Marion Barry. They were always short, but you could tell why people loved the man. He was always upbeat and always smiling.
One story I’ll share is when I was working at Catholic Charities, we had these staff potluck lunches. Marion attended with one of his sponsors, a Catholic Charities social worker. Mayor Barry always went first. I learned from a few people that it is now understood that he goes first because when he first came, they would spend ten minutes deferring to each other to go first.
As a kid, I didn’t like Barry because of the hotel smoking crack thing. Then I moved here and didn’t think much of him my first year here. Then, as I got older, I appreciated how hard he worked and saw firsthand his connection to others, where everyone knew his troubles, weaknesses, and faults.
None of that mattered, really, because Marion was always meeting people where they were. There will never be another one like him.
I spent all weekend working on the practicum and working all day yesterday. At this point, we are just racing till Thanksgiving. On Friday, I will have a guide to help everyone through this upcoming holiday, so be on the lookout for that.
In the meantime, I hope everyone is doing okay. Thanks for being here and supporting the fun.
Okay,
Chris
"Home Rule"? So D.C. didn't have an independent city government before that time?