Text of Mayor Barry’s Letter to The Times

I have been mayor of Washington, D.C., for 11 years. This fact alone suggests a degree of intelligence and sophistication. Yet, from reading Bella Stumbo’s article, “Barry: He Keeps D.C. Guessing,” people who do not know me would think I leaped from the screen of an Amos ‘n’ Andy show, totally ingenuous and eager to reveal a number of base characteristics to a previously unknown reporter.

Although my schedule is incredibly full--totaling that of many governors, county executives and mayors combined, and including pre-campaign activity--I granted Ms. Stumbo an interview based on her word that she wanted to do a comprehensive story about our great city and the Barry Administration. She said she also wanted to look at what is happening to black mayors around the country; whether racism is a factor, and the pressures on me as a black mayor in the nation’s capital. She insisted that she did not want to do another Barry-bashing or D.C. bashing story.

I gave her a list of names and phone numbers of people she could talk to, to see several sides of Washington, D.C., and of me, as a politician, a campaigner and a human being.

I was shocked when I read the article. It did not present a balanced view, nor quote any of my supporters who spent their valuable time talking with Ms. Stumbo--Bob Johnson, my campaign committee chair; Kemry Hughes, a young-adult supporter and former youth mayor; Peb Ali, a former member of Pride Inc., the organization I founded when I moved to Washington in the late 1960s. Rather too many paragraphs were filled with factual inaccuracies and, in some cases, blatant lies.

Take, for example, Ms. Stumbo’s statement, “ . . . people close to Barry keep going to jail for pilfering the public coffers.” She names three whom she says are “among” this group. The truth is, that during my 11 years as mayor, there have been only three people “close to the mayor” who have been convicted of taking public funds. I am pained by even this small number; pained for them and for me.

But this hardly justifies Ms. Stumbo’s dig, because I have been a public servant for nearly 30 years, achieving a record that speaks for itself. I refuse to allow that record to be judged by the mistakes of a limited few out of the thousands of people who have worked with or for me.

And while I am admittedly not the best enunciator in the world, I do not use the “black dialect” she chose to attribute to me. To say that I said of Jesse Jackson, “he don’t wanna be no mayor,” is ridiculous. I do not speak that way, nor would I have said such a thing at all, much less to a virtual stranger, and a reporter at that!

Perhaps Ms. Stumbo has been reading too much of Paul Laurence Dunbar, and thinks this dialect accurately reflects that of all black people. She is wrong, and many people I know--black and white--are insulted by her characterization. Most reporters realize that in casual conversation, grammar may occasionally slip; they account for this by making appropriate corrections in the written text. That is only fair. But I know now that fairness was not what Ms. Stumbo had in mind.

From her description of my office as “a lazy Latin palace,” to her statement that I grew up in Mississippi (it was Tennessee), Ms. Stumbo stumbles through this article, sliding from prejudicial opinion to total falsehoods, and slings mud along the way. The reference to “lazy Latin palace,” is not only an affront to me, but also to the Latino community.

I allowed Ms. Stumbo to travel with me for several days to a number of events on my schedule. In this way, I thought, she would glean a complete picture. Instead, she wasted ink on the wine, the chicken, the marble stairways--a partial skimming with no substance, but characterizations throughout to leave the subtle suggestion of a shallow leader who lacks sophistication.

What the national media picked up from her story is what I supposedly said about Jesse Jackson. I know I did not use the words Ms. Stumbo put into my mouth. I did say I welcomed my good friend Jesse Jackson to Washington, and even recommended an architect to remodel his home. I did say I know Jesse does not want to run for mayor, and that I am running. In no way did I denigrate him, nor will I let Ms. Stumbo drive a wedge between me and other members of this community, including the Jewish community.

All the denigration in the article is Ms. Stumbo’s, toward me. She said she wanted to look at racism. She did, all right--through her own prejudiced eyes. She looked at it and embraced it fully. This article does a disservice to me and to all who know and support me.

Ms. Stumbo--who claimed she wanted to be fair to Washington--owes me and the citizens of this city a deep apology.

MARION BARRY JR.

Mayor