Sam
Smith, 2006
- Marion Barry and I split over a quarter century ago. I can't remember the
exact issue, but it was one time too many that Marion had promised one thing
and then done another.
I
first met Marion in 1966. We were both in our 20s and he was looking for a
white guy who would handle the press. He had just organized the largest local
protest movement in DC’s history - a bus boycott - and I had participated and
written about it. The typical twenty something doesn't help get over 100,000
people to stop doing something for a day. I gladly took on the assignment.
We
hit it off and remained allies even after the day Stokley Carmichael walked
into SNCC headquarters and said that we whites were no longer welcomed in the
civil rights movement. Barry would later describe me as one of the first whites
who would have anything to do with him. I backed him when he ran for school
board and in his first two mayoral bids. And in those days, I have to say, he
got pretty good press.
But
by the time of the second run for mayor I was feeling queasy. A couple of
friends and I held a fundraiser for Marion but our wives would have nothing to
do with it. I introduced him by listing the reasons why people might be
ambivalent about Barry and then add, "On the other hand. . ." Marion
pointedly wiped his brow.
I
was already becoming aware of Marion's addiction to that most dangerous, if
legal, drug called power. Later, I would be listening to a talk show discussing
a book about cocaine in the executive suite and suddenly realize how similar
the two addictions were and how I could no longer tell which was affecting
Barry more.
I
saw less and less of him. We had lunch one day but I told him some things he
didn't want to hear and he later told a reporter, "Sam's a cynical
cat." In 1986 I told the Philadelphia Inquirer, "He's basically done
to ethnicity what Ronald Reagan has done to patriotism. He's turned it into a
personal preserve." About the same time Marion told a reporter doing a
feature on me that "Sam and I go back a long way, and over the years he's
become more radical, and I've become more conservative."
But
I still saw that it was a complex story. At one point, Charles Peters, editor
of the Washington Monthly, asked me to do a piece on him. I told him that I
would be glad to but that I wasn't going to trash Barry. And I suggested a
headline, "Failing the Faith." A few days later, Peters cancelled the
lunch at which we were to discuss the article and never got back to me. The
next thing I knew, the Washington Monthly ran an article by Juan Williams
trashing Marion Barry and using a variety of the headline I had suggested.
When
Barry ran for mayoral reelection the last time, I took the position that I was
all in favor of redemption; I just didn't see why you had to do it in the
mayor's office. I broke up one talk show host by suggesting that Barry follow
the example of a recently disgraced Irish bishop and go help the Indians of
Guatemala.
On
another talk show, Barry said that the press was always blaming him for all the
city's problems. I said that wasn't fair; I only blamed him for 26.7% of the
city's problems. "I'll buy that," Marion replied. . .
Yet
I also knew that Barry - like other urban ethnic politicians - had far more to
blame than himself. Whatever his faults, he knew he had been granted
dispensation because - like a feudal lord - he provided significant favors in
return. Barry had lived in Memphis and I often suspected he had learned his
politics from Boss Crump. For he understood the quid pro quo of traditional
urban corruption that had helped the Irish, Italians, Jews, and Poles break
down the worst corruption of all - that of an elite unwilling to share its
power with others. It was far from a perfect deal but in the interim before the
"reformers" seized office again on behalf of their developer and
other business buddies, more people would get closer to power than they ever had
or would again. It happened in Chicago, in Boston and in Washington.
And
now the reformers are back. The young gentrifiers who think the greatest two
moments in the city's history is when Barry went to jail for his drug use and
when they arrived in town.
The
last time I saw Marion was at a public dinner. Earlier, he had run into my wife
and asked, "Where's that sonofabitch?" But when he saw me we hugged
because despite all our differences we both knew we are still kin in a too
tough world. I'd just lucked out better.
More tales from the attic
