James Curley: Twice Convicted "Mayor of the Poor"

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In many political scandals, a representative accused of misconduct has been in office for decades, cultivating enough popularity that they can weather the blow to their image. James Michael Curley, by contrast, had his first stint in jail when his political career had barely started. Instead of ruining his future in the field, however, Curley's first scandal helped boost his popularity.

On December 2, 1902, Curley sat down to take a civil service exam. A member of the Massachusetts state house of representatives, Curley was not taking the exam on his own behalf; instead, he was impersonating a constituent who was trying to become a mail carrier. On February 25, 1903, he was arrested and charged with fraud. Along with an associate named Thomas Curley (no relation) he was convicted on April 3.

Curley was sentenced to serve 60 days in jail, and began his sentence on November 7, 1904, after a series of unsuccessful appeals. In response, hundreds of citizens demonstrated in the streets of Boston to show their support for him. The civil service examination system had been criticized as setting unnecessarily high educational requirements for jobs, a major concern for the Irish population in the city that considered the system to be unfairly weighted against them.

While still in jail, Curley won the Democratic primary by a margin of roughly 1,200 votes of more than 3,200 ballots cast. He won the subsequent general election as well, and would serve on the board of aldermen until 1910. "He Did It For a Friend" became a campaign rallying cry which handily disarmed any criticism about Curley's criminal record.

A towering figure in Boston politics, Curley was well-loved by a populace that saw him as their personal friend and advocate. However, he also had more than one run-in with the law and lived long enough to see his influence and appeal slowly wane away.

Early life

James Michael Curley was born in Boston on November 20, 1874 and attended the city's public schools. His father, who had immigrated to the United States in 1865 at the age of 15, died after lifting a heavy curbstone when Curley was just 10 years old. The incident helped stoke what would be Curley's enduring hatred for Boston's political power players, since the boss for his own ward did little to help the family after their breadwinner passed away.

Curley's mother helped the family stay afloat by working as a cleaning woman. Curley, already contributing to the family income by working as a newsboy, started jobs at a marketplace and drugstore as well. He then became a delivery driver, continuing his education by attending night classes twice a week.

Curley also worked as a salesman with the bakers' and confectioners' supply firm Logan, Johnston & Co., and held jobs in real estate and the insurance business. He entered politics in 1898, unsuccessfully running for Boston's city council, before winning a seat the next year.

Following his successful jailhouse campaign in 1904, Curley served on the board of aldermen until 1910 before returning to the city council. In the midst of these campaigns, he married his first wife, Mary E. Herlihy, in 1906.

In 1910, Curley entered his district's congressional race. In the Democratic primary, he competed against incumbent Representative Joseph O'Connell as well as a former congressman, William McNary. Curley made humility a staple of his campaign. When he found that his opponents had bought up all of the billboards in the district, he simply adorned them with streamers reading, "Elect a Humble Man: James Michael Curley." Although he came under fire for his personal honesty, especially given his criminal record, Curley vowed not to run a negative campaign against his opponents.

The strategy worked. After winning the primary, Curley was chosen in the general election for a House of Representatives term starting in March 1911.

Curley vs. Honey Fitz

While his election to Congress was a major milestone, Curley's primary objective was to become mayor of Boston. In November 1913, while still in the House, he announced that he would run for this position.

The incumbent mayor, John F. Fitzgerald (grandfather of President John F. Kennedy), had privately promised Curley that he would not seek re-election. But when he was pressured by the city's Democratic bosses to run for another term, Fitzgerald gave in. Rather than abandon his campaign, Curley decided that he would challenge Fitzgerald in the Democratic primary. He spurned the support of the party bosses, even vowing to end bossism if he was elected.

John F. Fitzgerald, aka "Honey Fitz," at left with son-in-law Joe Kennedy Sr. and grandson John F. Kennedy (Source)

Curley found a source of leverage in Fitzgerald's extramarital activities. The discovery that "Honey Fitz" had been canoodling with Elizabeth Ryan, an entertainer and cigarette girl nicknamed Toodles, at the Ferncroft Inn helped torpedo the mayor's chances of an electoral victory. Curley stoked the sensational coverage by delivering lectures with titles such as "Great Lovers in History: From Cleopatra to Toodles." On December 18, Fitzgerald withdrew his name from consideration.

The mayor's withdrawal did not solidify support behind Curley. He was annoyed when the Boston city council, dominated by Democrats, endorsed the man chosen to run in Fitzgerald's place (city councilor Thomas Kenny) instead of him. He became more confrontational during the campaign. When hecklers disrupted one appearance, he denounced them as "second story workers, milk bottle robbers, and doormat thieves." Jeered at another appearance, he asked the audience if anyone wanted to come onstage to "make anything of it." He had reportedly already laid one heckler flat with a punch before issuing this declaration.

Curley was also not above unscrupulous tactics during his campaign. Among other tactics, he mailed out notices to areas considered to be Kenny strongholds giving them incorrect information on where to find their polling place. Curley is credited with coining the phrase "Vote early and vote often."

In the final vote, Curley earned 43,262 votes to Kenny's 37,522. He had resigned from the House, effective February 4, to take on his new duties.

"Mayor of the poor"

Curley would sporadically serve as mayor, or throw his name into consideration for the position, for the next four decades. But under the city's reform charter, he found himself wielding immense power during his first term. He ousted hundreds of officeholders appointed by Fitzgerald, and personally met with any citizen who came in asking for a job or favor.

Targeted by political bosses and the business community, which quickly realized that Curley would favor Boston's poorer citizens over them, Curley lost the 1917 election to Andrew Peters, a figure in President Woodrow Wilson's administration. The state legislature, alarmed by the extent of Curley's mayoral power, responded in 1918 by barring Boston mayors from running for re-election; while they would be able to compete in future elections, they could only serve one term at a time. The legislation would stand for 20 years.

Following his defeat, Curley ran unsuccessfully for the House of Representatives in 1918 before becoming president of the Hibernia Savings Bank in Boston. But he soon turned his attention back to the mayor's office. The race again proved bitter; Curley ran a brutally negative campaign against his opponent, a Catholic lawyer named John R. Murphy. He sent canvassers posing as Baptist supporters of Murphy into Catholic districts to help raise suspicion of the candidate, or had them spread a rumor that Murphy intended to divorce his wife to marry a 16-year-old girl. On December 13, 1921, he was elected by a narrow margin of approximately 2,500 votes out of about 146,000 cast. His second term lasted from 1922 to 1926.

During his term, Curley won acclaim as a "man of the people" or "mayor of the poor" for his efforts to provide Boston's impoverished residents with jobs or other benefits. During the early 20th century, Boston was a city in decline. Shipping at the harbor was not as robust as it once was, the downtown was in a depressed state, and industries were departing.

One of the first actions Curley took in office was to order long handled mops for the cleaning women of City Hall so they wouldn't have to scrub the floors on their hands and knees. He sought to connect those looking to work with jobs that would benefit the city, including raking leaves, shoveling snow, reseeding the grass at cemeteries, and cataloging books at the library. During his second term, he oversaw a number of public improvements including the construction of schools, the L Street Bathhouse complex in South Boston, 12 new parks, health care relief stations, and hospital improvements.

Curley also sought to make residential properties in Boston more affordable by keeping their assessments low while raising assessments on downtown properties. Naturally, the tactic of taxing wealthier neighborhoods to help poorer ones put the mayor at odds with the business community. The disdain was mutual; one story, perhaps exaggerated or apocryphal, holds that Curley berated the president of the First National Bank after he refused to loan money to the city, even threatening to open the city's water mains to flood the bank's basement and vaults if they did not comply.

Later analyses suggested that this strategy may have helped accelerate the degradation of Boston's downtown. Looking to escape Curley's onerous tax assessments, businesses fled to the suburbs and left empty storefronts in their wake. This urban blight would not be remedied until the 1960s.

Despite his image as an advocate for the city's downtrodden residents, there were also indicators that Curley found unscrupulous ways to build his own wealth. Despite earning a salary of only $10,000 a year during his first term as mayor, he managed to have an ostentatious neo-Georgian mansion built for himself on Jamaicaway. He moved into the residence, which prominently featured shamrocks carved into the shutters, in 1915.

Curley's Jamaicaway mansion (Source)

During one mayoral stint, Curley was charged with stealing from the city through a scheme involving bond sales and a friend he had appointed as city treasurer. After the case dragged on through 34 continuances, he was finally ordered to pay $42,629 back into Boston's coffers in $500 weekly installments, with interest.

Remarkably, this instance of malfeasance also failed to shake the faith of Curley's most ardent supporters. Some years later, he made a radio address appealing for assistance with the repayment, saying he was having trouble making ends meet. In effect, he was asking Bostonians to contribute their own cash to help him repay public funds he had stolen. His adoring followers answered in droves, visiting the Jamaicaway mansion to drop off what cash they could spare.

The Roosevelt years

In 1924, in the midst of his second term in office, Curley entered the Massachusetts gubernatorial race. But his popularity in Boston did not extend to the rest of the state as a whole. He was soundly trounced by Republican candidate Alvan Fuller, earning 282,000 votes to Fuller's 641,000.

This campaign would result in another physical confrontation involving Curley two years later. Curley had helped a publisher named Frederick Enwright to launch a tabloid newspaper in 1921, and Enwright had returned the favor by having the paper endorse Curley in the 1924 election - the only one of Boston's six dailies to do so. But the relationship soured as each man accused the other of owing money, and the newspaper's coverage of Curley quickly turned negative.

On October 4, 1926, Curley spotted Enwright having lunch in the financial district and surprised him with an uppercut. While Curley would later claim that he had acted in self-defense, Enwright said he had been sucker punched. His Boston Telegraph soon ran an editorial cartoon portraying Curley as an inmate and a drunkard who had learned to hit from behind as a street fighter. Curley promptly filed a libel suit, and the jury ruled in his favor.

Prohibited from running for re-election under the 1918 state law, Curley had to wait until 1929 for his next chance at the office. He was again voted in, tallying up 117,084 ballots against Republican challenger Frederick Mansfield's 96,626. The election was held just one week after Black Tuesday, the catastrophic stock market crash that marked the start of the Great Depression.

Curley's latest four-year term began in January 1930. His abrasive personality resulted in a clash with Governor Joseph Ely over how relief programs would be administered. Boston would be allocated 12,500 jobs under the Public Works Administration, a little more than half of what the city was actually entitled to.

In the lead-up to the 1932 presidential election, Curley opted to support Franklin D. Roosevelt over Al Smith for the Democratic nomination. This marked a strong departure from his constituency, since Smith, a former New York governor and the Democratic candidate in 1928, was the preferred choice of most of the city's sizable Catholic population. At the party convention, Curley somehow managed to attend as a delegate representing Puerto Rico and threw his support behind FDR.

Curley and FDR (Source)

Following FDR's nomination and subsequent victory in the general election, Curley expected that he would be rewarded with a plum political position. In particular, he was hoping to be named ambassador to Italy. Instead, the newly elected President offered him the less appealing role of ambassador to Poland. A disappointed Curley rejected the offer with a quote from Shakespeare's Henry VIII, pointedly charging that FDR "left me naked to mine enemies."

The tiff with FDR was short-lived. With enthusiasm for Democratic candidates running high, Curley was able to decisively win the 1934 gubernatorial election. About 736,000 Massachusetts residents voted for him, while 627,000 opted for Republican candidate Caspar Griswold Bacon and 94,000 went for third party candidate Frank Goodwin.

As governor of Massachusetts, Curley oversaw FDR's New Deal programs and bolstered them with his own state relief programs. He focused on infrastructure, spending large sums to improve roads and bridges. However, a later analysis suggested that he may have unnecessarily delayed New Deal programs in the state by squabbling with federal authorities over who would control the funding.

In the late 1930s, Curley's influence began to falter for a time. In 1936, while still governor, he ran for a Senate seat but lost to Republican candidate Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. He was also defeated in his attempts to return to the Boston mayoral office in 1937 and 1941, and in 1938 won the Democratic nomination for governor but lost the general election. However, he was successful in the 1942 race for the House of Representatives and won re-election two years later.

Fraud conviction

In the 1945 election, Curley was returned to the Boston mayor's office on a landslide count of 111,824 votes. It was more than both of his opponents combined.

This victory was all the more remarkable because Curley was under federal indictment at the time. His trial had even been postponed to allow him to run for office.

Curley had participated in Engineers Group Inc., a fraudulent organization that misrepresented its resources in order to win war contracts for clients. Curley's role in the scheme had been fairly minimal; he had simply let the organization use his name on their letterhead, and he would argue that he had been the "victim of a professional confidence man whose professions of honesty deceived me and others." But he had still collected $60,000 in government funds by attaching his name to the group. The scheme was uncovered during then-Senator Harry S. Truman's investigation into the U.S. national defense program.

In February 1946, just a month into his fourth term as mayor, Curley was convicted of 10 counts of mail fraud. Also convicted were Donald Wakefield Smith, a former member of the National Relations Board, and James G. Fuller, who had acted as the vice president of Engineers Group Inc.

Curley continued to serve as mayor as his case went through the appeals process. He finally ran out of options when the Supreme Court opted not to consider his arguments. In June 1947, he was sentenced to serve six to 18 months behind bars. In poor health, Curley disregarded his doctor's orders and traveled to the nation's capital to personally request that the sentence be suspended; a federal judge refused, and Curley began serving his sentence in federal prison in Danbury, Connecticut.

While a criminal conviction is typically enough to get a politician to resign their office, Curley refused to step down. City Clerk John B. Hynes served as acting mayor during Curley's imprisonment; at Curley's direction, he collected the mayor's salary but donated it to charity. It is unclear just how much influence he continued to have from his out-of-state jail cell.

Similar to the public outcry in support of Curley after his previous fraud conviction, his latest plight inspired mass demonstrations among his supporters. Bostonians protested in the streets, and more than 172,000 people (about a quarter of the city's population) signed a petition demanding clemency "because of his health and other extenuating circumstances."

The entire Massachusetts congressional delegation also indicated their support for a pardon, with one notable exception: John Fitzgerald Kennedy, who had succeeded Curley as a congressman and would go on to be elected President in 1960. The action was widely scene as a rebuke to Curley for how he had treated Kennedy's grandfather. However, other accounts suggested that Kennedy was skeptical about Curley's claims of illness, or did not want to give the mayor special treatment when he had turned down appeals by the families of other prisoners.

The day before Thanksgiving, President Harry Truman commuted Curley's sentence. The mayor had served five months of his sentence, just shy of its minimum term. The action was ostensibly due to Curley's poor health, including fears that he would die in prison if he wasn't released. However, it is more likely that Truman acted under pressure from Curley's constituents and the Massachusetts delegation. After all, Curley was able to quickly return to work after his release.

Despite receiving a warm welcome upon his return to Boston, Curley also doomed his future in the office with an off-the-cuff remark. Soon after resuming his mayoral duties, he quipped that he had accomplished more in one day than Hynes had done in five months. Offended by the remark, Hynes decided to challenge Curley in the 1949 election.

John B. Hynes (Source)

The restriction on running for re-election had been lifted, so Curley was trying to hold on to the mayor's office for the first time since 1917. He denounced Hynes as a candidate who would favor Boston's businesses over its people. Hynes fired back that Curley was out of touch.

By this point, Curley's influence had also waned considerably; an increasing number of voters knew him more for his fraud conviction than for his earlier advocacy for the poor. Despite garnering just over 126,000 votes, he lost to Hynes by about 11,000 votes.

Later life

Soon after this defeat, a dual tragedy struck the Curley household. On February 11, 1950, his 41-year-old daughter Mary suddenly died of a cerebral hemorrhage while talking to her 34-year-old brother Leo on the phone. Later in the same day, Leo collapsed and died of the same ailment after learning of his sister's death.

Curley was no stranger to this kind of loss. His first wife had died on June 10, 1930, and in 1937 he re-married to a woman named Gertrude Marion Dennis. Curley had nine children altogether, but would outlive seven of them. Five died before the age of 40, including twin sons who died shortly after their birth in 1921.

On April 14, 1950, Truman issued Curley a pardon for both his 1903 fraud conviction and his more recent conviction. It was essentially a favor, a way of offering Curley a clear slate; the charges hadn't included any lasting sanctions, since he could still vote and hold office under Massachusetts law.

Curley launched two more mayoral bids in 1951 and 1955, both unsuccessful. In 1957, he was appointed to the State Labor Relations Commission. His memoir, I'd Do It Again!, was published in the same year; he'd earlier published another autobiographical work, The Purple Shamrock, with journalist Joseph Dinneen. In 1958, the movie The Last Hurrah was released, based on a book written about Curley by Edwin O'Connor. Spencer Tracy played the lead.

Curley died in Boston on November 12, 1958. Following his death, he lay in state at the State House Hall of Flags; he was only the fourth person in Massachusetts history to do so.


Sources: The Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, "Curley Gets Prison for Mail Fraud" in the Deseret News on Feb. 18 1946, "Truman to Free Curley Tonight" in the Lawrence Journal-World on Nov. 26 1947, "Truman Pardons Ex-Mayor Curley" in the Medera Tribune on Apr. 14 1950, "The Last of The Bosses" in American Heritage in June 1959, "Boston's Powerful Rogue" in the Christian Science Monitor on Dec. 29 1992, "How to Govern From Jail" on Slate on Dec. 2 2004, "The Mayor of the Poor" in CommonWealth on Sep. 22 2013, "The First Mayor of the New Boston" in CommonWealth on Sep. 25 2013, The Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys: An American Saga by Doris Kearns Goodwin, James Michael Curley: A Short Biography with Personal Reminiscences by William Bulger, John William McCormack: A Political Biography by Garrison Nelson, Rogues and Redeemers: When Politics Was King in Irish Boston by Gerard O'Neill

Buddy Cianci: Intimidation, Cronyism, and Renewal

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Few could doubt that the mayor of Providence was deeply invested in the city. Vincent A. Cianci, Jr., nicknamed "Buddy," spearheaded several efforts to revitalize the city and turn it into an attractive metropolis. It wasn't hard for residents to see the mayor in person; he was a frequent guest at Providence Bruins hockey games, and could even be found chatting with spectators at Little League games.

But Cianci was a polarizing figure as well. Throughout his time in office, several people close to the mayor found themselves behind bars. Cianci himself had to cut one term short after brutally assaulting a man. Critics considered him little more than a glad-handing thug.

Judge Ernest C. Torres would reference the competing aspects of Cianci's character while sentencing him on corruption charges in 2002. Torres compared the mayor to Robert Louis Stevenson's famous story of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

"The first Buddy Cianci is a skilled charismatic political figure, one of the most talented Rhode Island has ever seen, someone with wit who thinks quickly on his feet and can enthrall an audience," the judge said. "Then there's the Buddy Cianci who's portrayed here. That's the Buddy Cianci who was mayor of an administration that was corrupt at all levels."

Early life

Cianci's yearbook photo from the Moses Brown School (Source)

Born on April 30, 1941, Cianci had a comfortable upbringing as a proctologist's son in Cranston, Rhode Island. He attended the Moses Brown School, a preparatory school in Providence, where he joined the football and wrestling teams. He started his college education at St. Louis University, but after a semester he transferred to a school closer to home. He completed his undergraduate studies at Fairfield University in Connecticut, earning a degree in political science.

Cianci went on to earn a master's degree from Villanova University and a law degree from Marquette University. He was drafted into the military after law school and was set to deploy to Vietnam when his father passed away. Cianci was allowed to stay stateside, spending most of his three-year Army service at Fort Devens in Massachusetts.

After his discharge, Cianci returned to Rhode Island and opened a private practice. Before long, he was selected to serve as the chief prosecutor of an anti-corruption task force established by the state's attorney general in 1973 to go after organized crime.

Cianci would play a particularly effective part in bringing down Providence mob boss Raymond L.S. Patriarca. Another mobster, Rudolph Marfeo, had been gunned down in 1969 just one month after Patriarca was convicted of conspiracy in the murder of Marfeo's brother. Prosecutors suspected that Patriarca had been involved in the killing of the other sibling as well.

Raymond Patriarca (Source)

Patriarca had an alibi. He claimed that a Washington, D.C. priest had been visiting his company at the time of Marfeo's death. It seemed almost too good to be true: a man of the cloth who was ready to testify to the innocence of a criminal kingpin.

Cianci found a way to undercut the defense's case. Examining the parish records, he found that the official record showed the priest had not been in Rhode Island on the day of Marfeo's murder, but was actually attending a baptism in Virginia. Patriarca's alibi was shattered. He would be convicted and sentenced to 10 years in prison.

The "anti-corruption candidate"

Cianci is sworn into office (Source)

Following his performance on the anti-corruption task force, Cianci parlayed his local fame into a mayoral run. Providence was a staunch Democratic stronghold, but a fortuitous division opened up during the election year of 1974. Lawrence P. McGarry, head of the city's Democratic committee, refused to endorse incumbent mayor Joseph A. Doorley, Jr., who had served in the role for 10 years.

Doorley forged on without the nomination, but the split with McGarry fractured a decades-old political machine in the city. Running as an "anti-corruption candidate" in the general election, Cianci won a stunning upset. As the Republican candidate, he edged out Doorley by 709 votes out of more than 52,000 ballots cast. He was the first Italian-American mayor to be elected mayor of Providence as well as the city's youngest mayor and the first Republican to hold the office in more than 30 years.

Many years later, Cianci admitted in his autobiography that he was inexperienced and completely unprepared for the job. "Maybe I didn't know precisely what I was doing, but I was confident I could save the city," he said.

The razor-thin victory in a strongly Democratic city in New England made Cianci something of a celebrity within the Republican party. He was able to get an audience with President Gerald Ford, and in 1976 he gave a brief speech at the Republican National Convention before introducing former Texas governor John Connally.

Buddy Cianci at the 1976 Republican National Convention (Source)

Cianci would dedicate much of his time in office to reimagining the former industrial city of Providence into a commercial and tourist center. More than $200 million would be invested in new commercial and office buildings during his term. During his first week as mayor, monkeys escaped from the city's decrepit Roger Williams Park Zoo. In 1976, he earmarked millions of dollars to improve the facility.

But while Cianci would earn a reputation as a tireless advocate for Providence, he also contemplated leaving office before he had served a full term as mayor. As the 1976 election approached, he contemplated challenging incumbent Senator John Chafee for the Republican nomination for the seat. He ultimately decided against it.

By the time Cianci was up for re-election in 1978, he was facing a number of challenges. There were accusations that he had been coercing the Providence Police Department to hire unqualified candidates. Earlier in the year, Police Chief Robert E. Ricci had shot himself in his office. Edward J. Collins, a police captain who would later unsuccessfully run for mayor, blamed Cianci for the suicide.

It was an open secret that Cianci rewarded his supporters with city jobs. James Diamond, a mayoral aide, recalled that Cianci asked him to set up a computer database of every Providence resident in 1975. He figured the technology could be useful in assessing their loyalties and determining where to mete out rewards or punishments. Diamond never carried out this request.

The city had also fared poorly during the Blizzard of 1978, which had dumped more than 30 inches of snow on Providence. When the public works department tried to respond to the storm, few of its snowplows were in working condition; those that worked weren't even able to break out of the department's parking lot. A contingent of Seabees from North Kingstown eventually had to open up the streets, long after other communities in New England had managed to dig themselves out. Critics charged that Cianci's patronage system had left the public works department woefully mismanaged during the crisis.

Vehicles abandoned on Providence highway after the Blizzard of 1978 (Source)

Perhaps most damaging of all was a cover story run by New Times magazine in 1978. In the article, a woman accused Cianci of raping her at gunpoint in 1966 while he was a student at Marquette. She said she withdrew her criminal complaint in exchange for a $3,000 payment from Cianci so she wouldn't sue. Sources at the River Falls Police Department in Wisconsin told New Times that Cianci had flunked a lie detector test three times while the woman had passed.

Denouncing the story as an "ugly character assassination," Cianci pressed a $72 million libel lawsuit against the magazine. In legal filings, he admitted that he had slept with the woman, that there was a gun in the house at the time, and that he paid her $3,000 after she dropped her complaint. It was enough for the court to dismiss the matter, but Cianci pressed an appeal. The case was settled out of court for $8,500 and an official letter of apology from New Times, which conceded that both the district attorney and Cianci's lawyer in the matter concluded that no crime had occurred.

Despite these scandals, Cianci won a second term when he defeated Democratic candidate Frank Darigan with 56 percent of the vote. But his administration was soon tarnished by new revelations of corruption. Prosecutors charged 30 city workers and contractors with criminal activity, namely conspiracy and fraud; 22 would be convicted. Cianci denied any knowledge of this misconduct and was never charged.

Cianci celebrates his 1978 win with his wife, Sheila (Source)

Cianci pondered whether to put his name into consideration as a vice presidential candidate for the 1980 election. He met with Ford as well as Republican presidential candidate Ronald Reagan, but ultimately decided to turn his sights to a local race.

In the Rhode Island gubernatorial election for 1980, Cianci challenged Governor Joseph Garrahy, the Democratic incumbent who was completing his first term. The mayor won the Republican nomination, but performed disastrously in the statewide race. Under heavy criticism for his handling of Providence's finances, Cianci mustered barely a quarter of the total vote. Worse, he didn't even win a majority of votes in any of the wards in Providence, let along in any other city or town in Rhode Island.

Other developments seemed to signal Cianci's inevitable defeat for re-election in 1982, if he even decided to enter the race. In March 1981, the mayor made the unpopular proposal to raise property taxes by 20 percent to avoid bankruptcy. Outraged residents called for his resignation, and the city council began considering whether an ordinance should be drafted to allow voters to remove elected officials from office.

Poor fiscal management in the Cianci administration had helped bring the city to the brink of insolvency in the first place. Opponents charged that the mayor had avoided more manageable tax increases in previous years for political reasons, had only hired a financial director after leaving the post vacant for three years, and had hired four times as many summer recreational workers as he had been authorized to do. While Cianci managed to put $100 million in state and federal funds toward revitalizing the city in his first two terms, these funds were facing cutbacks. The city also had to deal with the challenges of inflation and a declining population.

Things only got worse in July 1981, when municipal workers went on a 16-day strike in response to cutbacks in overtime pay and other austerity measures. The protest earned the nickname "The Great Garbage Strike" for its most pungent feature: heaps of uncollected trash ripening in the summer heat. Cianci responded by firing the striking garbagemen and hiring private crews to collect the refuse.

Tensions were high enough that these workers feared that the union men would use tractor-trailers to ram their garbage trucks. Shotgun-wielding police officers accompanied the private workers on their runs, which were conducted at night in an effort to avoid confrontation. The tactic was successful in stemming violence, aside from one angry union garbageman who smashed into one of the city trucks with his own pickup. At the end of the strike, the union won some concessions but trash collection remained privatized.

Cianci speaks with a police officer accompanying private garbage collectors during a strike of municipal workers in 1981 (Source)

A widespread effort to repave streets and sidewalks throughout Providence in the summer and fall played a significant part in Cianci's re-election in 1982. There were accusations that the work was a blatant political gesture, and that the public works department would have done the upgrades sooner if it hadn't become a den of corruption and mismanagement. But voters may well have been reassured by the improvements.

A three-way race also helped tilt the odds in Cianci's favor. Running as an independent, he faced off against Darigan and Republican candidate Frederick Lippitt. He again squeaked through to victory, defeating Darigan by 1,074 votes out of approximately 55,000 cast to win a third term.

Assault on Raymond DeLeo

While he was a gregarious character in public, Cianci could be appallingly vindictive in private. One restaurant owner recalled that the mayor was enraged when a new bouncer at the venue insisted that he pay a $2 cover charge. Cianci retaliated by having the fire department shut down the eatery. The restauranteur said Cianci threatened, "You don't want to get into a pissing match with me, because you're a cup of water and I'm Niagara Falls."

In his autobiography, Cianci himself gleefully recalls a hair-raising if dubious act of thuggery. He suspected that Ronald H. Glantz, his chief of staff, had leaked information to Garrahy to sabotage his gubernatorial campaign. During a helicopter trip to an event where Cianci was scheduled to speak, he claimed to have seized the controls and forced the aircraft into a dive. As the chopper plummeted toward the ground, he angrily demanded that Glantz admit to the betrayal and didn't relent until his chief of staff did so.

Cianci's short-tempered side became clear with a violent incident in the spring of 1983. At this point, the mayor was estranged from his wife Sheila; the couple would later be divorced. Cianci became convinced that she was having an affair with a local contractor, Raymond DeLeo. On the evening of March 20, he asked DeLeo to meet him at his rented carriage house.

Raymond DeLeo (Source)

When DeLeo arrived at the mayor's home, it proved to be the start of a three-hour ordeal. He said the mayor kept him against his will and periodically assaulted him. DeLeo said that Cianci slapped him, struck him with a fireplace log, and burned him with a lighted cigarette after trying to put it out in his eye.

Several other men were present during these acts of violence, including James K. Hassett, a Providence patrolman who served as Cianci's driver; William McGair, Cianci's attorney; and Joseph DiSanto, the city's public works director. McGair eventually became perturbed by the mayor's behavior and called Herbert DiSimone, a former Rhode Island attorney general and friend of Cianci's. But the abuse continued even after DiSimone arrived and tried to talk some sense into Cianci. He reportedly threw an ashtray at DeLeo and threatened to kill the contractor or destroy his business unless he not only signed an affidavit confessing to an affair with Sheila, but also agreed to cut Cianci a check for $500,000. DiSimone eventually persuaded Cianci to let DeLeo go.

DeLeo reported the incident to the police, and his complaint became public on April 25. About a month later, on May 24, Cianci was indicted on two charges of extortion and one each of kidnapping, conspiracy to kidnap, assault with a deadly weapon, and assault and battery. One of the extortion charges accused the mayor of threatening Lenore Siegel Sternberg, a Florida resident, to get her to make a statement about the relationship between Sheila and DeLeo. Hassett was charged with kidnapping and conspiracy to kidnapping.

Cianci quickly sought to downplay the severity of the incident. He admitted that he may have made some intimidating gestures, but that he never actually harmed DeLeo. He may have picked up a log and thrown it angrily into the fireplace, he said, but he hadn't used it to strike the contractor. Cianci claimed that DeLeo had always been free to leave his home anytime he wished.

The mayor also griped that the incident was a "domestic matter" that never should have been brought before a grand jury. "Anyone can accuse if they've got something to hide or gain from it," he said. Cianci said he would refuse to resign his office.

Trial preparations began at the end of February 1984, at about the same time that several city employees were indicted on charges related to corruption in the public works department. Three days later, petitions were delivered to City Hall demanding a recall election to try to oust Cianci; they included 19,760 signatures. The woman who had claimed that Cianci raped her at gunpoint agreed to come to Providence to testify as a character witness against the mayor.

On March 5, Cianci agreed to plead no contest to charges of assault with a deadly weapon as well as assault and battery; the remaining charges were dropped. Hassett would also plead no contest to a charge of assault with a deadly weapon and resign from the police department. However, he would later be reinstated after his attorneys argued that there was no basis for the charge if Hassett had not been convicted of kidnapping.

Cianci is sentenced on April 23, 1984 (Source)

Cianci faced up to 11 years in prison, but on April 23 he was sentenced to a fully suspended five-year term with five years of probation. The sentence raised the question of whether he could continue to serve as mayor; the assault with a deadly weapon charge was a felony, and the new city charter barred felons from holding public office. Cianci resolved the issue by resigning two days after he was sentenced. The Rhode Island Supreme Court later gave him a public censure, but allowed him to continue practicing law.

In his autobiography, Cianci expressed regret for the incident but couldn't help joking about the matter as well. "[F]ind me a man who will never admit to having made a mistake and I'll show you a successful politician," he quipped.

Return to office

At about the same time as Cianci's resignation, a federal investigation began looking into malfeasance in the Providence city government. When the five-year probe ended in 1989, it had indicted 30 people. Charges included extortion, accepting kickbacks, theft of city pavement for private jobs, and employees conducting personal business while on the clock.

U.S. Attorney Lincoln C. Almond commented that more people would have been charged but for the expiration of the statute of limitations. Those who were convicted included former city solicitor Ronald H. Glantz, who was sentenced to eight years in prison; former Democratic city chairman Anthony J. Bucci, who received the same sentence; and Richard A. Carroll, former chairman of the Providence Water Supply Board, who was sentenced to three-and-a-half years. Cianci was considered for indictment, but ultimately was not charged.

Since his resignation, Cianci had been working as a radio host. Even with the news that he had been under investigation for corruption, there was speculation that he would again seek the mayor's office in 1990. Joseph R. Paolino, Jr., the Democratic chairman of the city council, had become acting mayor after Cianci's resignation and won a special election to keep the seat before being re-elected in 1986. He wasn't running again in 1990, opting instead to enter the gubernatorial race.

Cianci hosting his AM radio show (Source)

Just 17 minutes before the deadline expired on June 27, Cianci filed his papers announcing his intention to run for mayor of Providence. He was once again running as an independent; he would again face Lippitt in the general election, along with Democrat city councilman Andrew Annaldo.

During the campaign, one of Cianci's billboards was creatively vandalized by Rhode Island School of Design student Shepard Fairey. Residents looking up at the billboard saw that Cianci's face had been replaced by a stenciled image of professional wrestler Andre the Giant, with the slogan altered to read, "Andre never stopped caring about Providence." The image became so popular that Fairey turned it into a brand, selling millions of Andre the Giant stickers as well as other merchandise. Today, Fairey is better known as the artist behind the famous "Hope" campaign poster for Barack Obama.

"Andre never stopped caring about Providence" (Source)

When the ballots were counted, Cianci had won his narrowest victory yet. About 47,000 people had gone to the polls; Cianci won by a mere 317 votes. A small group of residents challenged his victory, arguing that the state constitution disqualified felons from holding office until three years after the completion of their sentence and probation. Under these rules, Cianci wouldn't be eligible for office until the spring of 1992.

Thomas Rossi, the newly re-elected mayor's campaign advisor, responded that it was a moot point. The torrid details of Cianci's assault on DeLeo had been given national coverage, he noted, and voters would have to be "hermetically sealed in a mayonnaise jar" to not know about his past conviction; they had favored him anyway.

Cianci renewed his focus on revitalizing Providence and turning the city into a destination. One of the most ambitious projects involved an effort to draw attention to the Providence River, which had long been hidden beneath roadways and other infrastructure. Once the waterway and its tributaries were exposed, they were girded with pleasant walkways and ornate bridges. In 1994, the city debuted WaterFire, a popular semi-regular event where braziers floated down the river as gondolas plied the waters.

Downtown Providence during the WaterFire festival (Source)

The downtown was further enhanced by the opening of the Providence Place Mall and a new skating rink. A total of $300 million was invested in transportation upgrades. Several biomedical businesses opened in the city. Cianci became a tireless promoter of the city, lobbying the New England Patriots to build a stadium in Providence and frequently appearing on national programs to discuss its business development, arts scene, and historical and cultural attractions. He made a point to show his acceptance of the LGBT community, welcoming them to visit the city or make it their home.

The accelerating pace of Providence's resurrection helped improve Cianci's popularity. Critics continued to point out that the mayor's plans were doing little to help the city's poorest neighborhoods or improve its schools, or that he was taking credit for revitalization plans that were bearing fruit after decades of bipartisan efforts, but these concerns were often overshadowed by praise for the glittering new business district. Cianci further won sympathy by promising to donate the proceeds from his locally distributed pasta sauce, "Mayor's Own Marinara Sauce," to fund a scholarship assisting poor children.

In 1994, Cianci comfortably won re-election in a race against former Democratic state representative Paul Jabour as well as Republican candidate Thomas J. Ricci. In 1998, he was unopposed in the general election.

Operation Plunder Dome

This momentum may easily have carried Cianci to another term in office had he not once again been faced with criminal charges. On April 2, 2001, Cianci was indicted on 30 counts of racketeering, extortion, conspiracy, witness tampering, and mail fraud. The charges were the culmination of a four-year federal investigation, dubbed Operation Plunder Dome, which accused the mayor of essentially running his office like an organized criminal enterprise.

The indictment charged Cianci with involvement in a wide variety of schemes to accept money under the table. Between 1991 and 1999, he and two associates were said to have received $250,000 in campaign funds from tow truck operators. These companies acted as straw donors, giving the money to Cianci's campaign to ensure that they would stay on the police department's preferential tow list. Cianci was also accused of taking bribes to give out municipal jobs, give people breaks on their property taxes, or allow them to obtain vacant city properties.

Similar to the accusations that Providence had been poorly managed under Cianci in the 1970s and 1980s, investigators said there had been widespread corruption elsewhere in the city government. Cocaine and gold had mysteriously disappeared from the police department's evidence room. Manhole covers had also vanished, stolen by city workers to sell for scrap metal.

Cianci talks to the media after his arraignment on April 6, 2001 (Source)

Cianci responded with defiance. Referring to the 97-page indictment, he joked, "I'm not afraid of this. Ninety-seven times zero is zero." When he heard that former tax board chairman Joseph Pannone had said the mayor instructed him how to take a bribe, Cianci joked, "What the hell does he think, that I'm running a seminar? Stealing 101?"

Nevertheless, Operation Plunder Dome began to win convictions against those accused of malfeasance. Not long after the investigation concluded, four city officials and two lawyers were found guilty of corruption.

Cianci went to trial in June 2002, five months before an election he had every intention to enter. By the time the proceedings began, many of the criminal charges had been thrown out for lack of evidence or other reasons.

The trial focused on a number of different incidents, including the extortion related to the tow truck leases and an accusation that Cianci accepted bribes on a $1.2 million lease the School Department took out on a building owned by a convicted felon. One woman testified that she paid the mayor $5,000 to get her son a job on the police force. Another man said he had shelled out $5,000 to get a city job; he started in a temporary role that paid only $9 an hour, but was later rewarded with a full-time senior planner position. Cianci was also accused of accepting $10,000 to grant a property tax break to a resident; taking another $10,000 bribe from a person who wanted to purchase city real estate; extorting a lifetime membership to the University Club, a private club on the city's East Side; and tampering with a witness who had been summoned to discuss the extortion before the grand jury.

David C. Ead, a tax official who had been convicted of bribery as part of Operation Plunder Dome, testified that he arranged a total of $25,000 in bribes for the mayor. Another witness said Cianci had made the threat, "Be careful of the toe you step on today, because it might be connected to an ass that you have to kiss tomorrow." More than 50 witnesses testified for the prosecution, with several saying that they had feared reprisals from Cianci or his director of administration, Frank E. Corrente.

Some of the most damning evidence in Operation Plunder Dome came from Antonio Freitas, a businessman who had paid bribes for tax breaks and other rewards at the FBI's direction. He had also worn a wire to secretly record 180 conversations with city officials between 1998 and 1999. In the tapes, played during the trial, tow truck drivers and other boasted about their connections to City Hall and the schemes they had set up to benefit Cianci.

In one conversation, Pannone described the mayor as being addicted to taking money. "He needs the green. He needs to fix his hair," Pannone said. The comment may have referred to Cianci's distinctive toupee, which he had nicknamed "the squirrel."

Cianci's defense attorneys sought to undermine the credibility of the witnesses who testified against the mayor. They didn't mince words, describing the witnesses as liars and thieves. Ead, one lawyer said, had a gambling addiction and was "a pig, plain and simple." Attorney John Tarantino declared, "David Ead has said just about anything and will do just about anything to protect himself. He's lied and he's cheated and he's deceived for money."

By the end of the trial, the charges related to the tow truck operator kickbacks and the alleged witness tampering were thrown out due to lack of evidence. The charge related to the school lease was also dismissed after the judge determined that it didn't meet the criteria for racketeering.

On June 24, Cianci was acquitted of 11 charges. But the jury found him guilty of one count of racketeering conspiracy under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act. The RICO rules held that the leader and beneficiary of a racketeering conspiracy could be held responsible for the acts of other conspirators even if he or she did not directly take part in their criminal actions. In his memoir, Cianci agreed with state representative Steven Smith's assessment of the conviction: "They found him guilty of nothing but responsible for everything."

The conviction did little to dampen support for Cianci among the mayor's adherents. He was greeted outside the courtroom by applauding supporters, some of whom shouted, "Let him go!" Almond had called on Cianci to resign after his indictment and repeated the advice after the verdict, saying, "I think the time has come to say the capital city cannot stand this type of corruption. Enough is enough." But Cianci was not required to leave office until his sentencing, and continued to put in public appearances; he even kept an appointment to address a graduating high school class on the evening of his conviction.

Cianci leaves his hotel to begin his prison sentence (Source)

Cianci faced up to 20 years in prison, along with a potential fine of $250,000. On September 7, Judge Ernest C. Torres ordered Cianci to serve 64 months behind bars and pay a $100,000 fine. The prison sentence was squarely in the middle of the federal sentencing guidelines of 57 to 71 months for racketeering conspiracy. Torres, disagreeing with the state's contention that the corruption under Cianci had been a significant disruption to city business, rejected the prosecution's request for a 10-year sentence. The mayor was also required to serve two years of probation and perform 150 hours of community service after his release.

Having maintained his innocence throughout the trial, Cianci thanked the judge for what he considered to be fair treatment. "It's an unfortunate situation. I'm sorry, obviously, that it has come to this," he said. "My heart will always be with Providence. I never intended to do anything wrong, Your Honor."

The sentence was stayed until December to give Cianci an opportunity to appeal, but state law required him to leave office immediately. The remainder of his term, through January 2003, was served by city council president John Lombardi. After Lombardi declined to run in the 2002 election, he was succeeded by Democratic state representative David Cicilline.

Several other people were convicted as a result of Operation Plunder Dome, including Corrente, Ead, and tow truck operator Richard Autiello. A businessman named Edward Voccola was also charged with involvement in the scheme, but was acquitted by a judge partway through his trial.

Later years

While in prison, Cianci kept up with local politics by reading week-old issues of the Providence Journal. He was also inducted into the Providence Preservation Society's hall of fame while still incarcerated. He belatedly filed an appeal in May 2003, arguing that the state had not provided any direct evidence that he was involved in corruption in the Providence city government. A federal appeals court upheld the verdict against him in a 2-1 decision in August 2004.

A surprising development came in April 2005, when the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit threw out the sentences of Cianci, Autiello, and Corrente. The court ruled that a recent Supreme Court decision, United States v. Booker, had invalidated the mandatory sentencing guidelines used to determine the prison terms for the three men. Cianci attorney John MacFadyen vowed to press for a shorter term, while Robert Corrente, the U.S. Attorney for Rhode Island, said he would oppose any reduction in the former mayor's sentence. Torres, who was ordered to re-sentence Cianci, decided against shortening his prison term.

On May 30, 2007, Cianci was released from prison and sent to a halfway house. Four months later, he again began making frequent appearances as a radio host. He was a frequent critic of Representative Patrick Kennedy, and in January 2010 said he was considering challenging the congressman for his seat in the House of Representatives. He decided against it.

In 2011, Cianci released an autobiography entitled Politics and Pasta. At one point, he wrote, "I used my public power for personal reasons. I admit it. It probably wasn't the right thing to do, but it certainly felt good."

July 2012 marked the end of the three-year waiting period following the end of Cianci's probation. Although Providence residents wondered if he would again run for mayor in the 2014 race, many didn't expect him to do so. Despite his former popularity and track record of urban development, he would be in his early 70s with the less than reputable record of two separate felony convictions.

Cianci during his 2014 mayoral campaign (Source)

Much to the dismay of his prosecutors and critics, Cianci announced that he would indeed run as an independent and seek a seventh term as mayor of Providence. He won the endorsements of several municipal unions, including those representing the teachers, firefighters, and police department.

During his campaign, an Associated Press investigation revealed that Cianci had broken his promise to not accept any donations from city workers. Reporters also found that his pasta sauce hadn't actually generated any profits in the previous four years despite marketing that it supported scholarships. In the general election, Cianci won about 45 percent of approximately 38,000 votes cast. Several Democratic candidates had abandoned their bids to consolidate support against Cianci; the remaining Democratic candidate, Jorge O. Elorza, won the race.

In November 2015, Cianci's official portrait was unveiled in City Hall. During his remarks at the event, Cianci quipped that it was "not the first time I've been framed."

Three months later, Cianci got engaged to Tara Marie Haywood, a 34-year-old actress and model. A few weeks after that, he was suddenly stricken with severe abdominal pain while taping a TV show. He died on January 28, 2016, at the age of 74.

Sources: "Mayor of Providence Seeking Re-Election Without Nomination" in the New York Times on Aug. 25 1974, "R.I. Mayor Cianci Denies Alleged Rape Incident" in The Telegraph on Jul. 10 1978, "City Troubles Catch A Rising Political Star" in The Telegraph on Apr. 18 1981, "Mayor Indicted on Kidnap Charges" in the Lewiston Daily Sun on May 25 1983, "Legal Scrapes Pursue Mayor of Providence" in the Washington Post on Jul. 2 1983, "Kidnaping Charge is Mayor's Next Hurdle" in the Chicago Tribune on Jul. 6 1983, "Mayor of Providence Pleads No Contest to Assault Case" in the New York Times on Mar. 6 1984, "Northeast Journal - Back on the Beat in Providence" in the  New York Times on Jul. 7 1985, "Providence Journal - The Election Was Only Round One" in the New York Times on Nov. 14 1990, "Providence Mayor Indicted on Racketeering Charges" in the New York Times on Apr. 3 2001, "Providence Mayor Convicted On Corruption Charges" in The Hour on Jun. 25 2002, "Providence Mayor Convicted of Corruption" in South Coast Today on Jun. 25 2002, "A Sentence for Corruption Ends an Era in Providence" in the New York Times on Sep. 7 2002, "A Heap of Trouble" in the Providence Journal on Dec. 11 2002, "Raymond DeLeo's Nightmare on Power Street" in the Providence Journal on Dec. 12 2002, "Ex-Providence Mayor Appeals Conviction" in the Plainview Daily Herald on May 27 2003, "Ex-Providence Mayor's Conviction Upheld" in the Los Angeles Times on Aug. 11 2004, "Sentences of Cianci, Two Others Thrown Out" in the Boston Globe on Apr. 7 2005, "Cianci Will Serve Full 64-Month Sentence" in the Brown Daily Herald on Jun. 27 2005, "Buddy Cianci Is In The Lead to Become Mayor of Providence. Again" in the Washington Post on Sep. 24 2014, "Good Buddy, Bad Buddy" in the New York Times on Oct. 11 2014, "Vincent A. Cianci Jr., Celebrated and Scored Ex-Mayor of Providence, R.I., Dies at 74" in the New York Times on Jan. 28 2016, "Timeline of the Late Buddy Cianci's Political Career" in the San Diego Union-Tribune on Jan. 28 2016, "Vincent 'Buddy' Cianci, 1941-2016" in the Providence Journal on Jan. 28 2016, "Former Providence Mayor 'Buddy' Cianci Has Died" in South Coast Today on Jan. 28 2016, "Buddy Cianci, Flamboyant and Roguish Mayor Who Rebuilt Providence, Dies at 74" in the Washington Post on Jan. 28 2016, Politics and Pasta by Vincent Cianci Jr. and David Fisher, The Prince of Providence by Mike Stanton, Who We Be: The Colorization of America by Jeff Chang

Marion Barry: up in smoke

(Source)

The first brush Marion Barry Jr. had with the law was a dispute over a parking violation in 1969. After spotting two police officers ticketing vehicles, Barry said to one of them, "If you put a ticket on my car...I'll kill you." When the officer called Barry's bluff, he tore the ticket up and threw the pieces into the policeman's face. In the ensuing scuffle, he struck the other officer in the face and tore his shirt. Barry, charged with assault, could have been sentenced to 10 years in prison. Instead, his case ended with a hung jury and two co-defendants were acquitted.

Barry would get in hot water for much more serious charges over the years, none more sensational than a 1990 incident in which he was caught on videotape smoking crack cocaine. Nevertheless, he became such a popular local figure in Washington, D.C. that both his supporters and detractors referred to him as the "Mayor for Life." Going from the son of an impoverished black family in the South to a leadership role in the nation's capital proved to be an inspiring story for many of his constituents, even as Barry's transgressions continued to checker his record well into the 21st century.

The third of 10 children in a family of sharecroppers, Barry was born on March 6, 1936 in Itta Benna, Mississippi. After his father died when Barry was four years old, his mother moved the family to Memphis and eventually married a butcher. Barry worked several jobs in his youth to support the family including selling newspapers, picking cotton, inspecting soda bottles, and bagging groceries. He graduated from Booker T. Washington High School in 1954, successfully becoming an Eagle Scout before doing so.

As the civil rights movement heated up, Barry joined the cause at a local level. He was the president of the student chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People at LeMoyne-Owen College, and was nearly expelled for criticizing a member of the college's board of trustees for a racially insensitive remark. Graduating with a bachelor's degree in chemistry in 1958, Barry went on to earn a master's degree in the subject at Fisk University two years later.

Since there was no NAACP chapter at this school, Barry formed one. He became a more noticeable civil rights figure, helping to organize lunch counter sit-ins in Nashville and participating in voter registration drives in several Southern states. He continued to pursue his studies, working for a year as a teaching assistant at the University of Kansas before transferring to the University of Tennessee at Knoxville. There, he founded a newspaper on civil rights issues entitled the Knoxville Crusader and learned that he was barred from tutoring white students.

This discrimination likely influenced the decision which would prove to be a major turning point in Barry's life. Although he was only a few credits short from receiving a doctorate in chemistry, Barry quit his studies. He had been part of a group of black student leaders who met to form what would become the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. In 1965, Barry moved to Washington, D.C. to begin full-time work as the organization's first national chairman.

By the time of Barry's arrival, "white flight" to the suburbs had transformed the city to one with a majority black population. Despite this demographic shift, whites continued to dominate city positions. This authority was rather restricted, however, given that the status of the city gave its residents rather limited representation. The District of Columbia had not even been allowed to vote in presidential elections prior to the 1964 election. It would not receive its own school board until 1968, and its representation in Congress was limited to a nonvoting delegate in the House of Representatives, a position not created until 1970.

"Home rule" for residents of Washington, D.C. became a major part of Barry's civil rights efforts in the capital. He organized the Free D.C. Movement and frequently wore a dashiki during his speeches. In January of 1966, he organized a one-day boycott of the city's transit system to protest a proposed fare hike. In 1967, he was successful in winning millions of dollars in federal grants to support jobs programs for poor blacks in the city. Two years later, he resigned from SNCC to turn his attention to this issue, founding an organization called Pride Inc. to find work for inner city youth.

Barry was elected to a string of municipal entities in the early 1970s, starting in February of 1970. He earned a spot on the Model Police Precinct, a board set up to improve relations between the police department and the people of Washington, D.C. He resigned a year later to run for the city's school board, defeating chairwoman Anita F. Allen for an at-large seat. He served until 1974, when he was elected to the City Council. At this point, he resigned from Pride Inc. to begin a full-time government career.

The City Council itself was a creation of the District of Columbia Home Rule Act of 1973. Though a mayor-commissioner and nine councilors had been responsible for managing the city since 1967, these positions were appointed by the President. The new legislation allowed the city to elect its own mayor and City Council in 1974, but Congress still had overarching authority in the district. Its members reviewed all of the Council's decisions, reserving the right to veto them, and retained the ability to set the city's budget and taxes.

In his first term, Barry worked to get a pay raise for the D.C. Metro Police and was instrumental in defeating a 1 percent gross receipts tax on city business. He was also an early supporter of gay and lesbian rights. Having built a base of support among numerous different groups and interests, he easily won re-election in 1976.

A year later, Barry was nearly killed in an incident that would help bolster his respect among the city's residents. On March 9, 1977, a dozen members of the Hanafi Muslims (a breakaway entity from the militant black group Nation of Islam) took almost 150 people hostage when they seized three buildings in the nation's capital. The group took over a Muslim religious center, the headquarters of a Jewish organization, and the District Building. They demanded that seven men convicted of murdering seven relatives of siege leader Hamaas Abdul Khaalis be presented for judgment before the Hanafi group. The hostage takers also demanded the destruction of all copies of "Mohammed, Messenger of God," a movie they considered sacrilegious to Islam.

Barry was on the fifth floor of the District Building, which functioned as the District of Columbia's city hall, when the gunmen took over the building. He heard two shots, which killed a radio journalist named Maurice Williams and injured a security guard who later died in the hospital of a heart attack. There was a third blast, and Barry realized he had been hit in the chest. One witness suggested that Barry had been a target; he said that when one gunman learned that he had shot Barry, he commented, "Oh good, we did get who we wanted to get."

Barry stumbled into the City Council chambers, where he was assisted by other people who had taken shelter in the room. He was later evacuated by firefighters who used an extension ladder to take him out through the window. Doctors found that a shotgun pellet had lodged less than an inch from Barry's heart, presumably after losing some of its speed in a ricochet. The slug was surgically removed, and Barry returned to work a week later.

When Barry ran for mayor in 1978, he received support from a variety of sources including the police, firefighters, young white professionals, and retirees. He was an early supporter of gay rights, working to prevent discrimination in housing and hiring, and he won acclaim among Hispanic voters by advocating for bilingual and adult education. The editorial board of the Washington Post named him as their choice for mayor. Though he won only 35 percent of the vote in the Democratic primary, it was enough to defeat City Council chairman Sterling Tucker and Walter E. Washington, the city's first elected mayor. In the strongly Democratic city, Barry easily won the general election by defeating Arthur A. Fletcher, a Republican who had served in both the Nixon and Ford Administrations.

Barry took the oath of office on January 2, 1979, in a strongly symbolic ceremony. He was sworn in by Thurgood Marshall, the first black justice appointed to the Supreme Court. The Post would describe Barry as a "national symbol for self-governance for urban blacks," noting that he secured jobs for black citizens in middle and upper level positions that had been traditionally dominated by whites. He also appointed a number of women to these positions.

Though there were certain racial issues in the District of Columbia—a 1991 study reported that 42 percent of the city's black men between the ages of 18 and 35 were in jail, on probation or parole, or wanted by the police—the city was burdened by numerous other problems as well. Washington, D.C. had little in the way of tax base to rely on. There were few heavy industries, most government employees commuted from suburbs in Maryland or Virginia, and many of the federal buildings and other structures were tax-exempt. Unlike urban areas elsewhere in the United States, the city could not rely on contributions from a state for assistance. The fire department was so strapped that it could only respond to one two-alarm call at a time.

In his first term, Barry completed an audit of the city's budget and trimmed the payroll by 10 percent. Most of the cuts were through attrition, but there were also deep cuts to the city's police force; about 1,500 people working for the D.C. Metro Police lost their jobs.

Barry led an effort to encourage hotel and business development in the downtown area, personally working with developers to help get their building permits approved. The mayor also strove to help the populace as a whole, championing programs that provided summer jobs to the city's youth, helped middle class families purchase a home, and offered food assistance to seniors.

Although Barry could point to some successes in his first term, other problems worsened or remained unresolved. Drug use, homelessness, and unemployment were on the rise. The crime rate increased, and critics pointed to Barry's gutting of the police department as the cause of the problem. In advance of the 1982 election, Barry abandoned the fiscal restraint he had shown in his first term and poured more money into public programs, including $180 million for elderly assistance and job programs. He easily won the Democratic primary and general election, and these victories were repeated in 1986. Though he won more support among the city's more affluent districts in the 1978 election, this trend reversed itself in subsequent contests as he was lionized among poorer voters.

In his second and third terms, Barry was heavily criticized as he seemingly abandoned his earlier commitment to financial responsibility. A 1990 report noted that one out of every 13 citizens in the District of Columbia was employed by the city, and enemies charged that the mayor awarded jobs based on patronage rather than skill. Carl T. Rowan, Jr., a former FBI agent, complained eight years later that the D.C. bureaucracy was "a source of jobs for people whose main qualification was their eligibility to vote for Barry." When Barry's second wife, Mary Treadwell, was sent to prison for embezzling from Pride Inc., he secured her a city job when she was freed.

Over the course of these three terms, 11 city officials appointed by Barry would be involved in scandals. Ivanhoe Donaldson, a former deputy mayor, was convicted in December of 1985 of embezzling $190,000 in city funds during Barry's first and second terms.

When Barry traveled to California to attend the 1987 Super Bowl, he was heavily criticized for not returning to the District of Columbia to oversee emergency management after the city was pounded by two blizzards in a row. These junkets were not uncommon; he met with heads of state in Africa in his first term, was a regular presence at prize fights in Las Vegas, and led a delegation to the Virgin Islands in 1988. Many questioned why Barry was heading to the Caribbean to assist the local government with with overhauling their personnel system, pointing out that Washington, D.C.'s swollen payroll and debt hardly made it a model for this reform.

There were also persistent rumors that the mayor was a philanderer and drug user. The Post said that attractive women were "omnipresent" in Barry's company, and he had been married three times and divorced twice by his third term (he would ultimately be married four times). When he suffered chest pains in September of 1983, he blamed it on a hiatal hernia; a physician not associated his his opinion opined that he had suffered a drug overdose, although this report would not be made public for another six years. A similar incident occurred in January of 1987. A federal grand jury called Barry to testify in January of 1984 during an investigation into the alleged sale of cocaine to the mayor and other D.C. officials. Barry was also in a number of accidents with his municipal vehicle and was rumored to have taken cocaine at a lavish "100 days in office" party, sexually harassed a model, visited a topless club where cocaine was being sold.

The drug rumors would gain steam later in Barry's third term. In June of 1987, he publicly denied a television news report alleging that he used cocaine with a former city employee. An attempted sting operation to purchase drugs from a former city employee named Charles Lewis at a hotel room in December of 1988 was called off when police learned that Barry was present; trace of cocaine were later found in the room. A week later, U.S. Attorney Jay Stephens announced that the incident would be investigated further. Barry apologized for his "bad judgment" in visiting Lewis, but insisted that he had not taken drugs. In January of 1989, Lewis also claimed that he had never used drugs with the mayor.

Lewis changed his story later in the year. In April, he was convicted of four counts of drug possession in the Virgin Islands; a month later, he was indicted on 16 counts of drug possession and perjury in the United States. He accepted a plea bargain in November, pleading to two counts of conspiracy to distribute cocaine and claiming that he had purchased crack cocaine for Barry in 1988 and used drugs with the mayor on the Virgin Islands trip.

The event which would offer undeniable proof of Barry's drug use had its roots in 1985, when Barry met an unemployed model named Hazel Diane "Rasheeda" Moore. She would later claim that they engaged in a two-year affair. Moore was also the beneficiary of $180,000 in city funds over the course of three years, with the money going toward an "image consciousness" campaign aimed at city youth.

On January 18, 1990, Moore invited Barry to visit her at the Vista International Hotel in the northwestern part of the city. Unbeknownst to Barry, Moore was collaborating with the FBI and a surveillance camera was hidden in the room. The tape captured the mayor fondling Moore's breast and leg and inquiring about drugs. She provided him with a crack pipe, and Barry took two deep drags. FBI agents and D.C. police officers stormed the room, placing Barry under arrest.

"Bitch set me up," Barry grumbled as he was placed in custody. "I shouldn't have come up here. Goddamn bitch."

The FBI surveillance footage showing Barry smoking crack cocaine (Source)

The arrest occurred just three days before an event where Barry was scheduled to announce that he would be running for a fourth term as mayor. Some of his advisers had privately suggested to him that he would be better off if he quietly left politics and accepted a university teaching job. He faced more of an uphill battle, due to his past controversies and the possibility that he would face a more powerful challenger. There were rumors that civil rights leader Jesse Jackson, who had recently moved from Chicago to Washington, D.C., would run for mayor; polls showed that he would easily defeat Barry in a mayoral race. 

Barry had been criticized for his remarks in a Los Angeles Times article, published on January 7, in which he was reported as saying, "Jesse don't wanna run nothing but his mouth. Besides, he'd be the laughingstock of America. He'd be run outta town if he ran against me." The article also said that Barry had boasted of his sexual prowess, threatened to punitive action against Jewish constituents who did not support him, and led schoolchildren in anti-drug pledges while denouncing rumors of his drug use as a "racist conspiracy."

There were suspicions that the government was using "selective prosecution" to target black leaders, an argument that gained a good deal of traction among Barry's supporters. They pointed out how the popular Harlem congressman Adam Clayton Powell had been expelled from the House of Representatives in 1967 for contempt of court, even though a House committee recommended that he be allowed to take his seat. "If they had accused Barry of stealing millions, creating a slush fund, awarding corrupt contracts, that would be one thing," said Benjamin Hooks, executive director of the NAACP. "But a personal habit that is bad, dangerous, lethal, that makes him a bad role model? There are 4 million people out there doing it. If there are 4 million, why did they pick out one and stick on his case for eight years?"

Barry's critics accused his supporters of trying to whitewash the crime. Some said that since prosecutors lacked the resources to go after every single offender, it made sense to arrest people whose behavior had compromised a position of public trust. Stephens said Barry's behavior was particularly egregious because he had been held up as a role model for black youth. In a column entitled "Don't Judge Black Politicians by Marion Barry," Mona Charen said there was no indication of racism or selective prosecution in Barry's case, since most of the politicians who had been ousted in recent years had been white. She denounced Barry as a hypocrite, adulterer, and lousy mayor who would be judged on these qualities rather than his race. "Most blacks do not use drugs, do not commit crimes, and do not philander," Charen concluded. "They work hard, pay taxes, and wash the car on weekends. It is no reflection on them that the mayor of Washington self-destructed. And it is no reflection on them that febrile leaders like Ben Hooks imply otherwise."

Three days after his arrest, Barry admitted that he had been wrestling with an addiction to alcohol and prescription drugs. He spent seven weeks at rehab in Florida and South Carolina before returning to Washington, D.C. During the jury selection for his June trial, he announced that he would not seek re-election. Sharon Pratt Kelly, who was working as vice president of public policy for the D.C. utility PEPCO and had been an active member of the Democratic National Committee, was later elected to succeed him.

Barry faced 12 drug possession charges, with one stemming from the hotel sting and the remainder from past instances in which witnesses said he had used cocaine. He had also been charged with three felony counts of perjury, which charged that he had given false testimony before the federal grand jury.

The trial lasted for two months. Lewis, who had started cooperating with prosecutors in exchange for a reduced sentence, claimed that he and Barry had used cocaine as far back as the 1986 trip to the Virgin Islands. Moore said she had agreed to help in the sting operation against Barry after a religious conversion and because she was worried about the mayor's health. The defense sought to discredit Moore as an unreliable crack cocaine addict, though they also argued that Barry's actions on the tape suggested that he had gone to the hotel in search of sex rather than drugs. Moore admitted that she had lied to a federal grand jury, since she had told the jurors—and the agents setting up the sting—that she had last taken cocaine in April of 1989; in fact, she had taken it in early January, even as she prepared for the sting.

In one dramatic moment on June 28, Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan arrived at the court with about a dozen followers. Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson, declaring that their presence would prove disruptive to the trial and intimidating to the jury, declared Farrakhan to be persona non grata in the courtroom. Farrakhan complained that Barry's trial "demonstrates the wickedness of the United States government and the lengths to which this government will go when it targets a black leader to be discredited."

In their closing arguments, prosecutors said it was ludicrous to claim that Barry was the victim in a racist conspiracy. Ten witnesses had attested to the mayor's cocaine use, they said, and the only conspiracy was one of "silence and deceit" to ignore or tacitly accept his behavior. "Mr. Barry is asking you to shut your eyes, cover your ears, to close your mind," said U.S. Attorney Richard Roberts. "Really, he's asking you to insult your intelligence by forgetting the facts."

The defense admitted that Barry used cocaine occasionally, but denied that he used the drug as frequently as the prosecution alleged. If that were true, they contended, he could have easily been arrested much earlier in a more conventional method than a sting operation. In an autobiography published shortly before his death, Barry offered a similar opinion. "They desperately tried to paint my cocaine use into something much more than it ever was," he said. "I had never used cocaine as much as they tried to say I had."

The jury, which included 10 black members and two white members, mulled over the charges for eight days. Five days into these deliberations, Barry announced that he would run an independent campaign for an at-large position on the City Council.

On August 10, the jury found Barry guilty of one count of drug possession. Surprisingly, it was not related to the January sting where his drug use had been caught on camera; in fact, the jury had acquitted him on that charge. Rather, the jurors agreed that the prosecution had proved that Barry used cocaine with Alabama businesswoman and Democratic political consultant Doris Crenshaw at the Mayflower Hotel in November of 1989. The jury could not reach a verdict on the remaining 10 drug charges or perjury charges, leading to a mistrial on those counts. It was a small victory for Barry; if he had been found guilty of perjury, the felony conviction would have barred him from holding any elected office.

Before his sentencing, Barry acknowledged that he was a drug addict and said he was "deeply sorry for his actions." He asked for a light sentence of probation or community service. The prosecution sought the maximum punishment of one year in prison, saying Barry was not sorry for his actions but rather upset that he had been caught. Stephens said that Barry had admitted to prosecutors that he used cocaine on at least a dozen occasions. Prosecutors also argued that he had "seriously impugned the integrity" of the mayor's office, especially since he had urged the city's youth to not use drugs.

On October 26, Barry was sentenced to six months in federal prison and one year of probation. He was also ordered to pay a $5,000 fine as well as the cost of his incarceration, with additional drug and alcohol rehabilitation. Jackson told Barry that he had "given aid, comfort, and encouragement to the drug culture" and set a bad example for the citizens of Washington, D.C. Although Barry told the judge that he was "truly remorseful," he continued to make claims of racial prejudice when talking to the press. "I understand that there are different standards for different people, and that's the American injustice system," he said after his sentencing.

In November, Barry experienced his first electoral loss when he finished third in the City Council race with only 20 percent of the vote. After his appeals were exhausted, he began his sentence at a minimum security facility in Virginia in October of 1991. He again claimed to be the victim of a "racist plot," accusing prosecutors of pursuing him while ignoring the malfeasance of white government officials. Barry was required to spend the entire six-month period behind bars, since sentences of under a year were not eligible for early release. Two months into his sentence, he was transferred to a medium security penitentiary in Pennsylvania after another inmate reported seeing a female visitor giving Barry fellatio in the prison's family reception room.

The drug conviction failed to put a dent in Barry's popularity. When he was released in April 1992, he was chauffeured home in a limousine and accompanied by six busloads of supporters. He immediately sought a Council seat to represent Ward 8, the poorest district in Washington, D.C. and the only one he had carried in the 1990 race. He won the Democratic primary with three times as many votes as incumbent Wilhelmina Rolark and was successful in the general election as well.

In May of 1994, Barry announced that he would seek a fourth term as mayor. "I'm in recovery and so is my city," he declared. He faced a three-way contest in the Democratic primary. Kelly had tried to reduce the city's debt, lobby the federal government for a higher budget, and reign in bureaucracy by eliminating about 6,000 jobs; she was not about to give up the office without an attempt at re-election. Councilor John Ray also entered the primary. Barry managed to defeat both of his opponents, earning 47 percent in the vote. Ray earned 37 percent of the vote, Kelly only 13 percent.

While the Democratic primary win typically guaranteed a victory in the general election in D.C., the Republicans had plenty of past scandals to use against Barry. The GOP chose Carol Schwartz, a city councilor who had unsuccessfully contested Barry in the 1986 election, for their candidate. Schwartz had run a hard campaign against Barry in that year, accusing him of incompetence and corruption during his first two terms; in the 1994 election, she could criticize him for his drug conviction as well. She suggested that Barry's cocaine use had played a part in the District of Columbia's increasing homicide rate.

Schwartz managed to keep the general election from becoming a runaway, but she only managed to take 42 percent of the vote. Barry came away with 56 percent. Despite the many charges of mismanagement and the infamous video of his drug use and arrest, he had been elected to a fourth term.

Washington, D.C. continued to be a city beset by serious problems. Several city agencies had been placed into receivership due to their appalling conditions. One judge described the conditions in a home for juvenile delinquents as "unacceptable for a civilized country." In a nursing home run by the city, some patients were found to have bedsores so severe that limbs needed to be amputated. The high rates of murder, high school dropouts, and infant mortality had not dropped significantly since Barry's first term, and the city was also dealing with high levels of crack cocaine addiction and AIDS infections.

Upon taking office in 1995, Barry appealed to Congress for a bailout to help shore up the city's finances and remedy its widespread problems. Instead, Congress established a financial control board to take over budgetary management from the local government amid allegations of extensive mismanagement and graft. Barry would feud with the board for the remainder of his term, decrying the loss of local level management as a "rape of democracy." He accused Congress, which had swung to the control of the Republican Party after the 1994 election, of trying to limit the home rule allowances which had been won two decades before.

In July of 1997, Congress passed a reform act which stripped Barry of much of his remaining power. Oversight of nine major departments was transferred to the financial control board, leaving only the parks and libraries under Barry's watch. He was essentially a mayor in name only. Barry announced in May of 1998 that he would not seek a fifth term, and he left office in January of 1999.

Barry left a polarizing legacy. He pointed to the revitalization of downtown areas as his signature achievement, including a decision to locate government offices in an area hard-hit by the 1968 race riots to help turn the neighborhood around. Supporters saw him as someone who had risen to success on his own initiative, who was committed to helping the city's youth and poor. Many thought that the frequent criticism directed at the mayor was part of a widespread effort to discredit him and roll back the power achieved by black residents of the District of Columbia. Critics said Barry had done more to harm the city then help it through persistent graft, moral bankruptcy, poor fiscal management, and his inability to stem crime or improve the schools.

Although Barry's fourth term as mayor would be his last, he was not out of politics for good. After working for a few years as an investment banker, he announced that he would run for City Council in March of 2002. However, he abandoned the bid after police found traces of cocaine and marijuana in his illegally parked car. Barry said he had been framed, and no charges were filed. Two years later, he was again elected to the Council from Ward 8. He would hold the position until his death.

A number of troubles continued to plague Barry in his later years. He was arrested on a misdemeanor charge of assault after a female janitor at the Baltimore-Washington International Marshall Airport accused him of exposing himself to her in an airport bathroom in 2000. Barry pleaded guilty to the charge and received a sentence of community service, and was later ordered to pay $35,000 when the woman filed a lawsuit against him.

At a court-ordered screening in 2005, Barry tested positive for cocaine and marijuana. Marion Christopher Barry, his son by his third wife Effi Barry, was convicted of drug possession six years later and received a suspended sentence. Polly Harris, Effi's mother, publicly blamed Barry for his son's drug use.

An audit discovered that Barry had failed to file federal or local income taxes for 1999, 2000, or 2004. He pleaded guilty to two misdemeanor charges in October of 2005, and was sentenced to three years' probation in March of 2006. The punishment came without a fine, allowing Barry to start paying back $195,000 in missed federal taxes and $54,000 in D.C. taxes plus penalties. When he also failed to file his taxes in 2005 and 2007, Barry reached an agreement with the Internal Revenue Service to settle the accounts; he blamed poor health for missing the deadlines.

Even in the midst of these incidents, Barry continued to enjoy widespread support. In 2005, he joined local businesses and volunteers in starting a program to distribute 2,000 turkeys for the holidays. A year later, the National Black Caucus of State Legislators awarded him the Nation Builder Award, recognizing his work as a civil rights activist and politician.

However, Barry would also face some embarrassments in his later years on the City Council. He was arrested in July of 2009 after he was accused of stalking Donna Watts-Brighthaupt, who was described as an occasional girlfriend. Though the charges were dropped, Barry was censured, stripped of a committee chairmanship, and removed from another committee a year later after councilors learned that he had awarded $15,000 to Watts-Brighthaupt as a "personal service" contract. Since Watts-Brighthaupt owed him money, she had simply repaid him from the same funds which Barry had assigned in his capacity as a councilor. A similar incident occurred in September of 2013, when Barry was found to have accepted cash payments from city contractors; he was again censured and stripped of a chairmanship.

Like his first brush with the law, Barry's final controversy involved parking tickets. He was involved in a car accident in August of 2014 after driving on the wrong side of the road. After this smash-up, it was revealed that he had $2,800 in unpaid moving violation fines and parking violations. He promptly paid the outstanding sum to the city.

In June of 2014, Barry published an autobiography entitled "Mayor for Life: The Incredible Story of Marion Barry Jr." He said that there were many who "judge me but don't really know me," arguing that he had completed a number of professional accomplishments in his life. "I always felt like I was two different people in politics; one as a personally religious man who was quiet with a lot of doubts and frustrations; and the other as the politician who had to be brave and courageous, while representing the desires of the people," he wrote. "I seemed to be brave enough to take on anything for the people. But deep down inside, I hurt like anybody else."

By this point, Barry had been suffering from a number of health problems. He had survived a bout with prostate cancer, received a kidney transplant in 2009, and suffered from diabetes. On November 23, 2014, he died of hypertensive cardiovascular disease.

Sources: Council of the District of Columbia, "Black Muslims Terrorize U.S. Capital; Reporter Killed, Many Hostages Held" in the Sarasota Herald-Tribune on Mar. 9 1977, "Bullet Stopped Short of Heart" in the Spokane Daily Chronicle on Mar. 10 1977, "Tale of Hanafi Moslem Terror is Related" in the Sarasota Herald-Tribune on Mar. 13 1977, "D.C. Coalition Leads 'Back to Cities' Move" in the Milwaukee Journal on Dec. 6 1978, "D.C. Mayor Denies Drug Involvement" in the Pittsburgh Press on Dec. 28 1988, "Marion Barry Keeps D.C. Guessing" in the Los Angeles Times on Jan. 7 1990, "Marion Barry Plans to Enter Race in Full Stride: 'I'll Win'" in the Free Lance-Star on Jan. 16 1990, "D.C. Mayor Arrested in Drug 'Sting,' Agents Say" in the Ocala Star-Banner on Jan. 19 1990, "Events in Marion Barry's Career" in the Star-News on Jan. 20 1990, "Don't Judge Black Politicians by Marion Barry" in the Moscow-Pullman Daily News on Feb. 5 1990, "Blacks Claim Barry Singled Out" in the Spokesman-Review on Jun. 9 1990, "Jurors View Videotape of Barry Drug Arrest" in the Washington Post on Jun. 29 1990, "Pained and Shamed, Barry Says" in the Pittsburgh Press on Aug. 3 1990, "Mayor Barry Guilty of Cocaine Charge" in the New Straits Times on Aug. 12 1990, "Marion Barry Seeks Probation" in the Argus-Press on Oct. 26 1990, "Barry Gets 6-Month Prison Term for Cocaine Possession" in the Boca Raton News on Oct. 27 1990, "Marion Barry Begins 6-Month Prison Term" in the News-Journal on Oct. 26 1991, "Ex-Mayor Marion Barry Trying to Make a Comeback" in the Star-News on May 22 1994, "Barry's Tenure Was a Roller Coaster Ride" in the Washington Post on May 22 1998, "Schwartz Launches Third Bid for Mayor" in the Washington Post on June 18 1998, "Tax Charges Net Marion Barry 3 Years' Probation" in the Free Lance-Star on Mar. 10 2006, "Some Things You Never Forget" in the Washington Post on Mar. 12 2007, "Barry Again Fails to File Tax Forms" in the Washington Post on Jan. 29 2009, "From the Archives: The Charmed Life of Marion Barry" in the Washingtonian on Feb. 19 2014, "Marion Barry Dies at 78" in the Washington Post on Nov. 23 2014, "Marion Barry, Washington's 'Mayor For Life,' Even After Prison, Dies at 78" in the New York Times on Nov. 23 2014, Mayor for Life: The Incredible Story of Marion Barry, Jr. by Marion Barry Jr., Democratic Destiny and the District of Columbia: Federal Politics and Public Policy by Ronald Walters and Toni-Michelle C. Travis, African-Americans and Criminal Justice: An Encyclopedia by Delores D. Jones-Brown and Beverly D. Frazier and Marvie Brooks