Marion Barry gave the presidential nomination speech for Jesse Jackson at the 1984 Democratic National Convention.
95 Facts About Marion Barry
2.
Marion Barry's celebrity was transformed into international notoriety in January 1990, when he was videotaped during a sting operation smoking crack cocaine and was arrested by Federal Bureau of Investigation officials on drug charges.
3.
The arrest and subsequent trial precluded Marion Barry from seeking re-election, and he served six months in a federal prison.
4.
Marion Barry was elected again as mayor in 1994, serving from 1995 to 1999.
5.
Marion Barry was born in rural Itta Bena, Mississippi, the third child of Mattie Cummings and Marion Barry.
6.
Marion Barry's father died when he was four years old, and a year later his mother moved the family to Memphis, Tennessee, where her employment prospects were better.
7.
Marion Barry's mother married David Cummings, a butcher, and together they raised eight children.
8.
The first time Marion Barry noticed racial issues was when he had to walk to school while the white students were assigned a school bus to ride.
9.
Marion Barry had a number of jobs as a child, including picking cotton, delivering and selling newspapers, and bagging groceries.
10.
Marion Barry first began his civil rights activism when he was a paperboy in Memphis.
11.
Marion Barry decided to boycott his paper route until they agreed to send the black paperboys on a trip.
12.
At that time, Marion Barry did not know much about his race, or why they were treated poorly, but he resented the incident.
13.
Marion Barry became more active in the NAACP chapter at LeMoyne-Owens, serving as president.
14.
Marion Barry wrote a letter to LeMoyne's president objecting to the comments and asking if Walter Chandler could be removed from the board.
15.
Marion Barry was a member of Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity.
16.
In 1960, Marion Barry was elected as the first chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee.
17.
Marion Barry helped develop an organizing project in McComb, Mississippi.
18.
Marion Barry said he and other activists lived with the local people in order to stay safe, as well as to learn what it was like to live there.
19.
Marion Barry began doctoral studies at the University of Kansas, but soon quit the program.
20.
Marion Barry contemplated law school to help with his activism, but decided against it, because the delayed admission would mean that he would have to take a year off from school.
21.
Marion Barry decided to go to the University of Tennessee where he was awarded a graduate fellowship.
22.
Marion Barry began doctoral chemistry studies at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, the only African American in the program.
23.
Marion Barry learned that he was prohibited from tutoring white children, and his wife Blantie Evans was not allowed to work at the white school.
24.
Marion Barry quit the program in favor of his new duties at SNCC.
25.
Marion Barry slept on the boardwalk in Atlantic City the night after speaking to the New Jersey Legislature.
26.
Marion Barry was deeply involved in coordinating peaceful street demonstrations as well as a boycott to protest bus fare increases.
27.
Marion Barry organized rides to work for those who needed them.
28.
The boycott cost the bus line thousands of dollars, and Marion Barry proved his ability to organize.
29.
Marion Barry served as the leader of the Free DC Movement, strongly supporting increased home rule, as a Congressional committee exercised administrative rule over the district.
30.
Marion Barry was active in the aftermath of the 1968 Washington, DC, riots that followed the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.
31.
Marion Barry organized through Pride Inc a program of free food distribution for poor black residents whose homes and neighborhoods had been destroyed in the rioting.
32.
Marion Barry convinced the Giant Food supermarket chain to donate food, and he spent a week driving trucks and delivering food throughout the city's housing projects.
33.
Marion Barry became a board member of the city's Economic Development Committee, helping to route federal funds and venture capital to black-owned businesses that were struggling to recover from the riots.
34.
In 1971, Barry announced his candidacy for at-large member of the school board, running against the incumbent, Anita L Allen.
35.
Marion Barry said he wanted to steer the school board back to the "issues of education" and away from problems of personalities.
36.
Marion Barry defeated Allen, with 58 percent of the vote to Allen's 34 percent.
37.
Marion Barry served as board president for two years, reorganizing the school system's finances and building consensus on the board.
38.
Marion Barry said the film was harmful to black youth, and that it glorified drug abuse.
39.
Marion Barry advocated for a larger budget for education and raises for teachers.
40.
Marion Barry supported the appointment of Barbara Sizemore as the district's superintendent, making of the District of Columbia the country's first major urban area with a woman as School Board Superintendent.
41.
Marion Barry was shot near his heart during the two-day 1977 Hanafi Siege in which hostages were held by the terrorists.
42.
Ultimately, Marion Barry narrowly won the nomination, with Washington relegated to third place.
43.
Marion Barry took office in January 1979 as the city's second popularly elected mayor since the restoration of home rule in 1973.
44.
Marion Barry instituted his signature summer jobs program, in which summer employment was made available to every school-age resident.
45.
The city's debt was a constant problem as well: Marion Barry had recalculated the Washington Administration's claim of a $41 million surplus and found that the city was $285 million in debt, a long-term accrual that his annual surpluses were unable to surmount by the end of his term.
46.
Marion Barry had travels with finances he often kept secret.
47.
Marion Barry was first reported to be using cocaine at downtown nightclubs.
48.
In 1982, Barry faced re-election against a challenge from fellow Democrat Patricia Roberts Harris, an African-American woman who had served in two cabinet positions under President Jimmy Carter, as well as from council members John L Ray and Charlene Drew Jarvis.
49.
Marion Barry began to be plagued by rumors and press reports of womanizing and of alcohol and drug abuse; in particular, stories abounded of his cocaine use in the city's nightclubs and red-light district.
50.
Marion Barry, who knew that most of Jackson's income came from delivering speeches, used his political clout to arbitrarily disqualify Jackson by getting a law passed that said anyone who made more than a certain amount in honoraria was ineligible to run for DC office.
51.
Marion Barry's aides began scheduling all of his daily events later and later in the day as he was arriving to work as late as lunchtime, and nodding off to sleep at his desk.
52.
Marion Barry was watching Super Bowl XXI in Pasadena, California when a winter blizzard struck Washington in January 1987; city crews were accused of badly mishandling the road clearing, adversely affecting local businesses.
53.
Marion Barry was implicated in a drug investigation involving Barry and a room at Washington's Ramada Inn in December 1988.
54.
On January 18,1990, Marion Barry was arrested with a former girlfriend, Hazel Diane "Rasheeda" Moore, in a sting operation at the Vista International Hotel by the FBI and DC police for crack cocaine use and possession.
55.
Marion Barry was charged with three felony counts of perjury, 10 counts of drug possession, and one misdemeanor count of conspiracy to possess cocaine, even though the cocaine belonged to the government informant.
56.
Six or seven jurors believed that the evidence against Marion Barry was overwhelming and that he had displayed "arrogance" during the trial.
57.
Marion Barry even ran as an independent for an at-large seat on the council against 74-year-old incumbent Hilda Mason.
58.
In October 1991, Marion Barry surrendered himself at a correctional facility in Petersburg, Virginia.
59.
Marion Barry was transferred to another federal prison in Loretto, Pennsylvania.
60.
Marion Barry was released from prison in 1992, and two months later filed papers to run for the Ward 8 city council seat in that year's election.
61.
Indeed, Marion Barry fulfilled expectations when he formally announced his candidacy for mayor on May 21,1994, and was immediately regarded as a serious challenge to the unpopular incumbent mayor, Sharon Pratt Kelly.
62.
The victory, coming after Marion Barry's videotaped crack use and conviction shocked the nation, carried front-page headlines in newspapers such as the Los Angeles Times and Boston Globe.
63.
Marion Barry was sworn into office on January 2,1995, and was almost immediately confronted with a financial crisis.
64.
One month into his term, Marion Barry declared that the city government was "unworkable" in its present state and lobbied Congress to take over the areas of its operation that were analogous to typical state government functions.
65.
Marion Barry declined to run for a fifth term in office in June 1998, stating his belief that Congress would not restore full home rule while he was mayor.
66.
Marion Barry was succeeded by city CFO Anthony A Williams.
67.
On March 6,2002, Marion Barry declared his intention to challenge at-large council member Phil Mendelson in the Democratic primary.
68.
On June 12,2004, Marion Barry announced that he was running in the Democratic primary for the Ward 8 council seat, a position he held before becoming mayor.
69.
Marion Barry has publicly clashed with Fenty over DC United's proposed soccer stadium in Marion Barry's Ward 8.
70.
Marion Barry was the stadium's most outspoken supporter on the council, whereas Fenty attempted to distance himself from his initial support for the project.
71.
In July 2007, Marion Barry was chosen as one of fifty wax statues to debut in the Washington DC franchise of Madame Tussauds Wax Museum.
72.
Marion Barry was chosen by a majority of Washington residents and tourists from Tussauds' "Top 10 Wish List," in a contest that pitted him against Cal Ripken Jr.
73.
Marion Barry ran for re-election in 2008 and easily held off all five challengers in the Democratic primary: Ahmad Braxton-Jones, Howard Brown, Chanda McMahan, Sandra Seegars and Charles Wilson.
74.
In May 2009, Marion Barry voted against a bill committing Washington, DC to recognize same-sex marriages performed elsewhere.
75.
Councilman Phil Mendelson said he was surprised by the vote because Marion Barry had signed on as a co-introducer of the marriage bill.
76.
Marion Barry said his position had not changed and warned that the council needed to move slowly on this issue.
77.
On October 28,2005, Marion Barry pleaded guilty to the misdemeanor charges stemming from an IRS investigation.
78.
The mandatory drug testing for the hearing showed Marion Barry as being positive for cocaine and marijuana.
79.
US Magistrate Judge Deborah Robinson refused, saying that prosecutors had not proved that the failure was willful, even if Marion Barry was aware he had missed the deadline.
80.
Marion Barry said the reason he did not file his taxes was because of distractions from his medical problems, although he noted that there is "no excuse" for not filing.
81.
Marion Barry attributed the lien to poor communication between the Internal Revenue Service and his representatives.
82.
On September 10,2006, Marion Barry was stopped by Secret Service Uniformed Division police officers after stopping at a green light and running a red light.
83.
Marion Barry was then taken to the US Capitol Police station for a breathalyzer test.
84.
The police officers asked Marion Barry to give a urine analysis, which Marion Barry refused.
85.
Marion Barry was charged with driving an unregistered vehicle and misuse of temporary tags.
86.
On December 16,2006, the Park Police pulled over Marion Barry for driving too slowly, which Marion Barry later said was because he was trying to figure out where to enter an elementary school's parking lot for a nonprofit foundation's event.
87.
Two days later, the DC Department of Motor Vehicles confirmed that Marion Barry's license had not actually been suspended and said a computer glitch must have caused the error.
88.
At the time of the accident, Marion Barry had $2,800 in unpaid tickets for speeding and parking violations accumulated since 2012.
89.
On July 4,2009, Marion Barry was taken into custody by the Park Police after political consultant Donna Watts-Brighthaupt, his ex-girlfriend, claimed he was stalking her.
90.
An investigative report by a special counsel said that Marion Barry had personally benefited from a contract that he had awarded to his then-girlfriend Donna Watts-Brighthaupt.
91.
The report stated that Marion Barry had awarded a contract to Watts-Brighthaupt, who then repaid money owed to Marion Barry with the proceeds of the contract.
92.
Marion Barry responded to the special counsel report by claiming he had violated no written rules or procedures on such contracts and that there was no conflict of interest.
93.
Marion Barry married Effi Slaughter, his third wife, just after announcing his candidacy for mayor in 1978.
94.
Marion Barry died at United Medical Center in Washington, DC, on November 23,2014, from cardiac arrest, aged 78.
95.
In June 2009, a documentary of Marion Barry's life was released at Silverdocs.