Barry’s Exit Closes Door on an Era

Marion Barry is the last of the civil rights activists to parlay street leadership into City Hall power.

By announcing that he will not seek a fifth term as mayor of the District of Columbia, Barry, 62, joined the roster of first-generation big-city black mayors--Cleveland’s Carl Stokes, Detroit’s Coleman Young, Los Angeles’ Tom Bradley--who gained national prominence in the late 1960s and early ‘70s more for the racial symbolism of their styles of leadership than for their achievements in office.

Barry’s departure from office will complete what Howard University political scientist Joe P. McCormick II calls “a political life cycle” that saw black civil rights activists venture from protests on southern college campuses to street organizing in urban ghettos to winning city elections.

Though other black mayors preceded him, Barry came to Washington in 1965 as chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, opening the group’s office here. He organized a successful bus boycott in 1966 and was elected to the school board in 1971. Three years later, he was on the district’s City Council as an at-large member and was elected mayor in 1978.

“Barry was the first field general of the civil rights movement to become a chief executive of a city,” McCormick said. “That journey won’t ever be repeated again. That generation has peaked in its leadership.”

Barry, who was convicted in 1990 for drug possession, served six months in prison. He returned from prison to win a seat on the council in 1992; in 1994, he was reelected mayor with 56% of the vote.

Like the others before him, Barry is likely to be replaced by a second wave of pragmatic politicians who seek office with promises to deliver services that their predecessors often failed to provide.

David Bositis, senior policy analyst at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies in Washington, said black mayors such as Bill Campbell in Atlanta, Mike White in Cleveland and Emmanuel Cleaver in Kansas City hold a view of their job that is fundamentally different from that of Barry and his contemporaries.

Whereas earlier black mayors came into office on the heels of urban riots with bold initiatives, federal aid for city programs and newly enfranchised voter support, this generation of mayors presides over cities that have less money, greater needs and peripatetic industries.

“Mayors have to placate business these days,” said Bositis. “They don’t have as many choices, because in the old days, industries were fixed in cities and the early black mayors could lean on industry to pay for their bold plans.

“Now, if a mayor crosses business, it will just leave for the suburbs, for another state or region, for Asia, for Mexico,” he added. “There’s nothing to keep the auto industry in Detroit.”

Barry was able to retain the old-style leadership for so long because there is no strong business, no fat tax revenue to finance city operations. Rather, Congress provides money for the city’s purposes.

During the years of Democratic control of Congress, Barry was able to appeal to the majority black electorate without rigorous accounting for expenditures. But in 1995, after the Republicans had captured Congress, Capitol Hill took over most city operations from Barry and the City Council. A financial control board appointed by the White House has since run municipal services, rendering Barry little more than a figurehead mayor.

Barry, who steps down in January, blamed Congress in part for his departure. He said he will “fight better . . . on the outside than the inside [against] a mean-spirited, Republican-led Congress that assaults us to break the spirit of our people and recolonize our souls.”

Sen. Lauch Faircloth (R-N.C.), chairman of a district appropriations subcommittee, said in a statement that it is time for Barry to go. “Marion Barry sadly turned the capital city into a national joke. Now it’s time for Washington, D.C., to restore itself with professional management,” he said.

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Jonetta Rose Barras, a Washington columnist and author of a critical biography of Barry, said the time has come for Washington to elect a new type of black administrator. “The gap between [black] leaders and [white] leaders is closing,” she said. “With Barry’s departure, we will finally be able to do what other [cities] are doing, moving more mainstream in our political leaders.”

In her book, “The Last of the Black Emperors,” Barras argues that race will become less of a factor in Washington politics as the next mayor will be someone who addresses issues such as crime, education and street maintenance.

“Race was the No. 1 issue when we elected Marion Barry, Coleman Young and Dick Hatcher [in Gary, Ind.],” she said in an interview. “Now race will be only one of the lesser factors. The top issue will be who knows how to cut the deal and get the city a big piece of the pie.”

However, Barry and his supporters take a dim view of so negative an assessment. “I believe I was a good mayor,” he said.

Ron Walters, a professor of government and politics at the University of Maryland, agreed. “When you look at the legacy of that group who came to City Hall as the products of the civil rights movement, you have to conclude that they used their elected positions to empower black people in ways that had never happened before they arrived,” he said. “Mainly, they employed them [in city government] and used their clout to provide social services in black communities. Marion was very much an exemplar of that group.”