by Jeff Rodriguez Long before Toronto had Rob Ford, Washington, D.C., had Marion Barry Jr. The former mayor rose to prominence more than 30 years ago, along the way compiling a remarkable list of accomplishments — and a remarkable list of PR disasters to go with them. Certainly no one could dismiss how far Barry had come. The third of 10 children, he grew up poor in Mississippi, and his father died when he was 4. Young Marion would work a number of jobs, achieve Eagle Scout and earn a master’s degree. He also had brushes with racism, which ultimately led him to the NAACP and later the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. In 1965 SNCC assigned him to open a chapter in the nation’s capital. Here he spearheaded a number of community service efforts and got his start in politics, being elected first to the school board and next the city council. He ran for mayor in 1979 and won handily, becoming the first civil rights activist to lead a major American city. Alas, the mayor was widely rumored to like the women, alcohol and drugs, and scandals plagued his administration. Yet at re-election in 1982 he pulled 82 percent of the vote. That’s support most politicians can’t buy, let alone earn. Everything changed Jan. 18, 1990, when a former girlfriend invited Barry to join her in a D.C. hotel room to smoke some cocaine. As Barry was lighting up, FBI agents burst into the room and arrested him. The case appeared open and shut. The Feds had surveillance video of Barry with the cocaine and a recording of him scoffing over the small amount. They also recorded him saying, “The b---- set me up. ... She’s a god---- b----.” His actual words had no hyphens. A few days after his arrest, Barry told his church congregation how humbled the incident left him: “I've had to realize that God made Marion Barry the same as He made other people.” Apparently, Barry’s aides had failed to brief him on this. When the trial began, Barry faced more charges than General Custer: 10 counts of drug possession, three felony counts of perjury and one misdemeanor count of conspiracy to possess cocaine. The FBI had

enough videotape of prima facie malfeasance to make an episode of “COPS.” The drama inside the courtroom paralleled the excitement outside it. Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, himself a publicist’s nightmare, was barred from entering the courtroom on grounds he might be a distraction. Denied an opportunity to use his fine people skills, Farrakhan publicly voiced his displeasure. Then something crazy happened: Despite the overwhelming evidence, the jury convicted Barry on only one charge and couldn’t agree on the rest. The judge declared a mistrial, and the mayor, who never surrendered his office, went back to work. The one conviction required Barry to serve six months, so he decided against seeking re-election. When he emerged from prison, he was a changed man, which he confirmed by declaring, “There is a living God, for I have experienced a spiritual resurrection — a living proof that there is life after death.” While he may have been resurrected, Barry was still addicted — to politics, at least. A couple of months after being released, he decided to seek an at-large council seat held by long-term incumbent Hilda Mason. Even for Barry, it was a bold move: Mason was an elderly African-American with her own reputation as a civil rights activist and education advocate, and she dubbed herself “Grandmother of the world.” What’s more, when Barry arrived in D.C., Mason was one of his advisers. And after he was injured in a shooting in 1977, she took him into her home and nursed him back to health. The community was torn. Jesse Jackson, for example, eventually supported Mason. In response, Barry, who had given Jackson’s nomination speech at the 1984 Democratic Convention, told an interviewer, without the least bit of irony, that Jackson had a problem of “betraying and going against people who helped him over the years.” For his comeback campaign, Barry’s team had a brilliant slogan: “He may not be perfect, but he's perfect for D.C.” Not to be outdone, a Mason aide observed that the election pitted “everyone's grandmother against everyone's boyfriend.”

Mason staved off Barry in that race, but Barry pressed on, next setting his sights on his old council seat representing Ward 8. He won and then in 1994 regained the mayor’s seat, easily defeating a council member endorsed by The Washington Post. For those who considered Barry’s return an embarrassment, this was a bitter pill to swallow (or perhaps freebase). But the mayor-elect moved quickly to build bridges with his adversaries, advising them to “get over it.” Barry served as mayor from 1995 to 1999, but fortunately for late-night talk show hosts that was hardly the end of his career. In 2002 he announced for another at-large council seat but changed his mind, perhaps influenced by authorities finding traces of marijuana and cocaine in his car. In 2004 he again took Ward 8, squeaking by with 95 percent of the vote. Barry also has maintained close ties with various law enforcement personnel. Over the years he has faced traffic violations, failed drug tests and charges of failing to pay taxes, misusing government contracts and, in his spare time, stalking a former girlfriend. Today, 14 years after the drug bust, Barry continues to represent Ward 8 and to create PR headaches. He told an interviewer that the coke he smoked that day had been laced with a toxic substance in an FBI attempt to kill him. In 2012, at a party celebrating a primary victory for his D.C. council seat, he declared, “We've got to do something about these Asians coming in, opening up businesses, those dirty shops. They ought to go, I'll just say that right now.” He later apologized but in the clarification referred to people of Polish descent as “Polacks.” Here’s the thing: None of these stumbles terminally dulled Barry’s luster. In 2007, as Madame Tussaud’s Wax Museum prepared to open a location in D.C., he was voted among the first 50 people to have a statue. Get over it, indeed. Like most politicians, Marion Barry Jr. probably never read a public relations textbook. But unlike most, to succeed he never really needed to.