Part 8 - Black Power: The Making of a Machine

This is the eighth installment of a series (see the first installment here) summarizing the 1994 book Dream City: Race, Power, and the Decline of Washington, D.C.by Harry Jaffe and Tom Sherwood. This book has recently been republished as an ebook and a paper book. HBO has plans to use material from the book to make a movie about the life of Marion Barry.

Chapter 7: Black Power: The Making of a Machine

Thurgood Marshall, the first African-American justice on the Supreme Court, swore Marion Barry in as mayor of Washington on January 2, 1979 at the District Building. His wife Effi stood by his side.

Barry and his team of aides redesigned the government, which had not changed greatly from its pre-home rule structure. They also changed the faces in city government. Barry made it clear that the city human rights office would investigation minority hiring practices of district firms and expected law firms, accountants, and retailers to hire more blacks and women.

In the city government, "...they moved swiftly to bring on more women and members of the gay and Latino community -- both to be fair and to pay political debts" (Kindle location 2173).

Barry's top aides were city administrator Elijah Rogers and "general assistant" Ivanhoe Donaldson.

They inherited a $100 million budget shortfall and $300 million in long-term debt from the previous administration.

In July 1979, Barry and "a small entourage" took a nineteen-day trip to Africa. He was greeted like a world leader. But while he was gone, Ivanhoe Donaldson was arrested for failing to pay a personal $2,700 debt to building contractor. But the debt was paid off and the bad publicity was minimal.

In October, the Washington Post ran a series of articles chronicling the theft and skimming of government money by Barry's previous wife and the organization they had run together. At the same time, the Washington Star newspaper reported that Barry had received a sweetheart deal on a home mortgage from an influential banker.

"Lillian Wiggins, a columnist for the Washington Afro-American, smelled a plot" (l. 2259). Wiggins labelled it the "Master Plan", eventually shortened it popular usage to "The Plan". Negative characterizations of black leadership were part of a plot to reinstall white leadership in the district. "In ominous shorthand it embodied the city's racial tensions; it also played into Barry's hand. A year into office, he'd become the lightning rod that was hot-wired directly into that most vulnerable and insecure part of the collective black psyche" (l. 2271).

"That kind of pressure led many black Washingtonians to circle their wagons around Barry to protect him" (l. 2275).

"The racial divisiveness made it easier for some whites -- who needed little from government except routine services -- to disengage themselves from it all" (l. 2276).

The Barry administration sent mixed signals to Capitol Hill. Barry met Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT). Leahy headed the Senate committee that controlled DC's budget. Barry said, "We want as much control as possible over our finances" (l. 2288). Congress seemed prepared to grant this wish, but then the Barry administration pulled back. Barry aide Ivanhoe Donaldson called a Leahy staffer later and said, "The budget autonomy is too risky. We like it the way it is now" (l. 2300).

The Barry administration was plagued by local problems (crime, rats) and national ones (recession, inflation).

Barry started seeing a woman named Karen Johnson, who kept a detailed diary of their relationship. The diary eventually came into the possession of a TV journalist and later the FBI. Johnson became pregnant and Barry ended the relationship.

Johnson's former boyfriend was a drug dealer. "Johnson's estranged boyfriend, Franklin Law, told police that he supplied Johnson, who shared it with Barry and eventually sold it to him on at least twenty or thirty occasions" (l. 2331).

Ivanhoe Donaldson was supposed to keep Barry in check, but he had problems of his own. He got in the habit of writing checks to friends from the unaudited Special Administrative Fund. The friends would then turn around and give the bulk of the fund back to Donaldson for his own personal expenses. "Ivanhoe Donaldson had embezzled $27,145 in five months from the emergency fund that became his personal slush fund" (l. 2352).

In March 1982, three women who worked in a strip club just south of Franklin Square told police Barry had come to the club for sex and drugs. An African-American police official reported this to the FBI and Justice Department, who did nothing. Eventually, the report was leaked to Barry and the police official was demoted.

In the 1982 election, Barry's main opponent was Patricia Roberts Harris, an African-American lawyer who had worked at the US delegation to the UN, and had been Ambassador to Luxembourg and Secretary for Housing and Urban Development.

Barry predicted he would beat Harris handily. "The mayor based his prediction on the three legs of his young political machine: campaign money from the business community, power and votes from the churches, and the loyalty that derives from political patronage" (l. 2420).

"He began by courting the city's powerful black ministers" (l. 2421), including the leaders of the Bible Way Church, the United House of Prayer for All People, and the Shiloh Baptist Church. He put city money at the disposal of various churches to provide much-needed programs like day-care and senior centers.

Also, "Barry dispensed carefully controlled constituent services, merging that office with his political apparatus under former campaign deputy Anita Bonds. She handled routine complaints on one hand, enforced political discipline with the other, and also bused adoring crowds to Barry's community meetings" (l. 2431).

"Routine city services, such as trash collection and street cleaning, began showing up regularly in black neighborhoods unaccustomed to it. Barry also opened up new libraries and fire stations" (l. 2441).

Harris came off as aloof, Barry as a man of the people.

"'I have suffered a thousand wounds in trying to do right by the city', Barry told one candidate forum."

"'It's true, Mr. Mayor, that you have suffered a thousand wounds, responded council member Charlene Drew Jarvis.... 'Unfortunately, they're all self-inflicted'" (l. 2460).

Barry won the 1982 Democratic primary with nearly 60 percent of the vote. "The results marked the total shift of Barry's electoral support from an integrated base in 1978 to one that relied on the black middle class and poor. In 1978 the white vote put him over the top; in 1982 it alone couldn't defeat him. With the biracial coalition went the civil rights movement's liberal dream of social change, of helping the less fortunate, of bringing the races together. In its place, Boss Barry began to emerge" (l. 2470).

At this time, Barry's first group of advisors, including Elijah Rogers, left. Another advisor who left said: "The government became directed by greed" (l. 2491).

Cheater's Guide to Dream City continues next week

Further installments will appear on successive Fridays. All posts will be cross-posted on the Short Articles about Long Meetings.

Full disclosure: I have a commercial relationship with Amazon. I will receive a very small portion of the money people spend after clicking on an Amazon link on this site.

This is a great book and well worth reading in its entirety.

Continue to the next installment here.

Part 7 - A Man for All People

This is the seventh installment of a series (see the first installment here) summarizing the 1994 book Dream City: Race, Power, and the Decline of Washington, D.C.by Harry Jaffe and Tom Sherwood. This book has recently been republished as an ebook and a paper book. HBO has plans to use material from the book to make a movie about the life of Marion Barry.

Chapter 6: A Man for All People

This chapter starts with a description of the 1973 murder of seven members of the Hanafi Muslim sect (including four children) by Black Muslims at a brick mansion at 7700 16th Street NW. The murderers were  tried and sentenced to long prison terms, but the Hanafi Muslim group descended into paranoia, saying, for example, Jewish judges had been too lenient. They turned their 16th Street home into an armed camp.

On March 9, 1977, the Hanafi Muslims struck back. They stormed the offices of the B'nai B'rith and the Massachusetts Avenue mosque called the Islamic Center and took hostages.

Marion Barry heard about the incident on his way to the District Building for a committee hearing. "He was unaware that a smaller group of Hanafis at that moment was beginning to seize offices inside the District Building" (Kindle location 1873). He was shot as he stepped off an elevator. He suffered a minor flesh wound, but the pellet was lodged two inches above his heart.

Mary Treadwell, recently divorced from Barry, ran to his side at the hospital. There, she met Effi Cowell, then 33, who would become Barry's next wife. Advisers ensured that future visits did not occur at the same time.

From his hospital bed, Barry made the decision to run for mayor in 1978, against incumbent Walter Washington and City Council President Sterling Tucker in the Democratic primary. Initial polls showed him in third place. Barry and advisers felt Washington and Tucker would split the black vote. They formulated a strategy that would "allow Barry to slip into office by corralling white votes and picking off pockets of support from disaffected blacks and the emerging block of gay voters" (l. 1923). The existing black elite was not likely to vote for Barry, they felt.

Barry pursued white and black businesspeople who didn't like the other choices, including restauranteurs who had difficulty getting liquor licenses.

Barry was living with his girlfriend, Effi Cowell. Advisers felt a candidate for mayor could not be living with someone. In February 1978, they were married in a quiet ceremony. But she was a problem for the campaign, as she had a quiet manner that appeared aloof and was so light-skinned that many voters thought she was Caucasian.

Barry continued womanizing. He was seen out alone with other women. There were difficult-to-confirm accusations of sexual assault.

Candidates hustled for endorsements. Barry received the endorsement of the Fraternal Order of Police, in spite of his previous run-ins, because he proposed legislation to give them annual raises.

Barry also charmed the Washington Post editorial board. He received six separate editorials praising his campaign. He resisted pressure from the Tucker campaign to drop out. Barry won the primary by 1,400 votes out of 89,460 votes for the three major candidates, and buried the Republican candidate in November.

Barry reached out to those who had supported other candidates. President Jimmy Carter and members of Congress (including Senator Patrick Leahy, chair of the committee that oversaw the city's budget) met with Barry.

"The resulting political constellation presented a unique opportunity in American politics. In 1978, in the capital city, there was a chance to create a truly integrated body politic" (l. 2128).

Cheater's Guide to Dream City continues next week

Further installments will appear on successive Fridays. All posts will be cross-posted on the ad-hoc "Cheater's Guide to Dream City" blog.

Full disclosure: I have a commercial relationship with Amazon. I will receive a very small portion of the money people spend after clicking on an Amazon link on this site.

This is a great book and well worth reading in its entirety.

Read the next installment here.

Part 6 - Bombthrowers to Bureaucrats

This is the sixth installment of a series (see the first installment here) summarizing the 1994 book Dream City: Race, Power, and the Decline of Washington, D.C.by Harry Jaffe and Tom Sherwood. This book has recently been republished as an ebook and a paper book. HBO has plans to use material from the book to make a movie about the life of Marion Barry.

Chapter 5: Bombthrowers to Bureaucrats


The 1968 destroyed large parts of Washington, and little rebuilding took place immediately. In 1969, President Nixon promised assistance. Neighborhood groups squabbled over who should represent the neighborhood, and millions in federal funds went unused (l. 1475).

But there was also opportunity. Fourth-generation Maryland housebuilder Oliver Carr bought up downtown property cheap, starting with a building at the corner of 17th Street and Connecticut Avenue NW. "From that first bold move, Carr built an empire..." (l. 1482).

DC Mayor Walter Washington changed what had been a department of the federal government into the DC government, while also handling wave after wave of anti-Vietnam War protestors.

"...[W]hen one million peace protesters descended on the capital in May 1971, Richard Nixon called him from Camp David to say, 'You're in charge'" (l. 1487).

"In one of the least reported and documented developments in Washington local politics, the timing of the District's movement toward independence coincided with the continued ingathering of former student civil rights leaders. Many of the men and women who had stood on the front lines of the movement -- Ivanhoe Donaldson, John Wilson, Courtland Cox, Lawrence Guyot, Frank Smith, and others -- saw the city's unique black majority community as fertile soil to carry on a civil rights movement as it changed into a struggle for economic power. Eventually, nearly the entire leadership of the student civil rights movement found its way into the capital and joined the battle wrest power from Congress, the white power structure, and the native black elite" (l. 1489).

Meanwhile, Marion Barry became the bridge between the white power structure and the African-American community through his organization, Pride, Inc. "He wore a tie and jacket to disarm the businessmen; he wore a dashiki and an amulet with a bullet around his neck and armed himself with a .38 for his work at Pride, Inc" (l. 1495).

Pride, Inc., started as an alley cleaning operation and expanded into gas stations, real estate, and confections.

Barry was arrested in May 1969 after he and companions started a fight with a police officer over a parking ticket. He was hit with a blackjack and spent the night in the hospital. Staff on Pride, Inc.'s payroll demonstrated against Barry's arrest. A trial on the charge a year later ended in a hung jury.

A month after that, Barry and an ally stormed a meeting of First Lady Pat Nixon and Republican Senate wives to draw attention to the fact that cars double-parked outside the building were protected by police, while regular citizens would have gotten tickets. He got positive press attention.

Soon after, Barry helped negotiate an end to a threatened teacher's strike.

Pride, Inc., was the subject to near-constant legal scrutiny, including FBI (which had also infiltrated the organization) asking "Pride officials whether they had had any dealings with the Mafia, Red China, H. Rap Brown, or drug dealers" (l. 1543). FBI reports included information on Barry's love life and choice of clothes. The most damaging finding was $10,000 in phony payroll checks out of about $8.5 million in federal grants, an amount the authors call "minimal" (l. 1548).

"The FBI's surveillance continued into the early 1970s, when its reports noted in deadpan prose that the 'negro militants' were becoming elected officials" (l. 1560)

In 1971, Walter Fauntroy became DC's first delegate to Congress, defeating three other candidates with 44 percent of the vote. Appointed City Council President John Hechinger got the downtown business community behind Fauntroy "and establish[ed] an enduring pattern of white money behind black candidates" (l. 1586).

"If the first law of Washington politics was white money behind black candidates, the second was that Washington was a one-party town. The Republican party never organized in the capital and never attracted more than a tenth of the electorate, in part because it was run as a club for white conservatives" (l. 1604).

Barry ran for a seat on the DC school board against Anita Allen, a member of the city's light-skinned African-American elite. Handlers groomed him to act in a manner more acceptable to middle-class voters. "I'm a situationist," Barry told a Washington Post reporter at the time. "I do what is necessary for the situation" (l. 1633).

Barry won with 58 percent of the vote. 9.3 percent of the city's registered voters went to the polls. Other candidates, whom Barry had supported, elected him school board president.

In May 1973, Barry married Mary Treadwell, his second wife. Two months after that, he barely escaped arrest for an incident late at night in the apartment of a female colleague. "The story never became public, in part because the woman realized that if she exposed Barry it could hurt certain initiatives she was working on, including the home rule drive. She didn't want to give Congress another reason to keep the District from governing itself" (l. 1719).

1973 saw another try at a home rule bill. Autonomy was chipped away as it progressed through committee. The right to a locally-elected district attorney was lost. Congressional representatives traded their support for home rule for a guarantee of no commuter tax. Federal properties would not be taxable. Instead Congress and the President would determine a yearly lump-sum payment. Congressman Gerald Ford led the opposition to the bill, but his attention went elsewhere when he was appointed Vice-President.

Barry found the problems of the city's schools intractable and wanted to move on. With the help of Ivanhoe Donaldson ("brilliant, articulate, courageous") and others, Barry considered running for city council president. But the city's political elite had other ideas. Barry was told to run for an At-large seat.

"Barry bristled, postured, argued -- then did as he was told. But he would never forget" (l. 1789).

Walter Washington won the first election for DC mayor. "Sterling Tucker was elected city council chairman and promptly made his first mistake by appointing Barry to head the powerful finance and revenue panel, which controlled taxation. For the next four years, Barry used his committee as a club against Tucker and Mayor Washington on one hand, while with the other he began to woo white business interests" (l. 1795).

Barry and staff also rejected Washington's tax-raising budgets and devised tax-cutting budgets of their own, although rich property interests got some special breaks.

He also kept his activist edge. He said DC tax money "flows out of the pockets of DC taxpayers and into the hands of predominantly white male, suburban-residing police officers" (l. 1810). He won the election, and also separated from his second wife.

Barry seemed to be cleaning up his act. He stopped smoking. He drank only white wine. But it was at this time, the authors say, "that Barry first came into contact with cocaine" (l. 1838).


Cheater's Guide to Dream City continues next week

Further installments will appear on successive Fridays. All posts will be cross-posted on Short Articles about Long Meetings.

Full disclosure: I have a commercial relationship with Amazon. I will receive a very small portion of the money people spend after clicking on an Amazon link on this site.

Continue to the next installment here.

This is a great book and well worth reading in its entirety.

Part 5 - The Uprising

This is the fifth installment of a series (see the first installment here) summarizing the 1994 book Dream City: Race, Power, and the Decline of Washington, D.C.by Harry Jaffe and Tom Sherwood. This book has recently been republished as an ebook and a paper book. HBO has plans to use material from the book to make a movie about the life of Marion Barry.

Chapter 4: The Uprising

"Everyone thought Washington was riot-proof," said John Hechinger, first chair of the appointed city council. The black middle class was too big, and military muscle too close.

Martin Luther King was in Washington five days before his assassination. He addressed an overflow crowd in National Cathedral.

"...[I]f nothing is done between now and June to raise ghetto hope, I feel this summer will not only be as bad, but worse than last year," he said (Kindle location 1098).

The same evening President Lyndon Johnson said he would not seek the nomination to a second full term as President.

King was assassinated in the early afternoon of April 4. Word spread, people were stunned.

Activist Stokely Carmichael came out of the storefront offices of the Student Nonviolent Coordination Committee (SNCC), two blocks north of the intersection of 14th and U Streets NW. He led a crowd south down 14th Street, demanding stores close to honor King. Cooler heads try to calm the situation.

Rioting broke out. People looted and set fires on a massive scale. By 10:30, Carmichael had fled the rioting for the night.

The police chief had gone to a Cherry Blossom Festival event, and the ranking officer in charge was at the Washington Hilton, where Vice-President Hubert Humphrey was making a speech. A decision was made not to call in the military that night, or the next day until 4pm.

Carmichael returned the next day, brandishing a gun before the press.

"Stay off the streets if you don't have a gun, because there's going to be shooting," he said.

After that, he mostly stayed out of sight.

Smoke rose over downtown. The federal government shut down in the mid-afternoon. There was an enormous traffic jam leaving the city, hampering police and fire. Stores on 14th and 7th Streets NW and H Street NE were looted and set ablaze. Rioters obstructed firefighters. "Most of the twelve people who were killed during the rioting died in burning stores." (l. 1272)

"The looters sacked stores at 14th and G Streets, two blocks from the White House, before police drove them out of the central business district (l. 1281).

Marion Barry "had become one of the primary conciliators during the uprising. The city's leaders, both white and black, thought that Barry was one of the few people who could appeal to the looters.... Compared to a crazed teenager with a Molotov cocktail, Barry was a moderate... (l. 1306).

Barry worked with Giant supermarkets to get food to people in the riot-torn areas. No Giant store had been set on fire. "Five Safeway stores, Giant's main rival, had been reduced to rubble" (l. 1322).

Mayor Walter Washington instituted at 5:30 pm to 6:30am curfew. Federal troops were stationed along main streets and insections, "but the alleys belonged to the arsonists" (l. 1343). Troops used tear gas but did not fired weapson. After a few days, the curfew was lifted and the troops went back to their barracks.

"In countless ways, the city of Washington never recovered from the uprising. People will always define the city's history as 'before the riots' and 'after the riots'. The greatest changes took place in the city's political arena. Power shifted to the black majority, and though Marion Barry was not a major playing during the uprising, he would be a primary beneficiary..." (l. 1355).

White southern congressmen asked repeatedly why the looters weren't shot. The Cherry Blossom Festival was cancelled. The city council held hearings in African-American neighborhoods and heard continued anger.

Carmichael returned and tried to take over the SNCC office on behalf of the Black Panthers. Workers from Barry's group, Pride Inc., and their allies defended the office. Carmichael soon left the US.

"Why do we go on patting each other on the back like a mutual admiration society when this thing isn't over yet? It's not just the 6,300 people who were arrested, but a whole lot of people in this town are angry and just waiting 'til the troops leave," Barry said (l. 1439).

He also said: "When the city rebuilds the riot corridors, if you don't let my black brothers control the process -- and I mean all the way to owning the property -- it might just get burned down again" (l. 1440).

Barry "was invited into the coalitions and committees that grew out of the efforts to heal the city's wounds" (l. 1444).

The last words in this chapter are: "Marion Barry started to take his place among the city's power brokers" (l. 1455).

In this chapter, the authors recommend (l. 1116) the following out-of-print book about the 1968 14th Street riots: Ten blocks from the White House: An anatomy of the Washington riots of 1968by Ben W. Gilbert and the staff of the Washington Post.

Cheater's Guide to Dream City continues next week

Further installments will appear on successive Fridays. All posts will be cross-posted on the blog Short Articles about Long Meetings.

Full disclosure: I have a commercial relationship with Amazon. I will receive a very small portion of the money people spend after clicking on an Amazon link on this site.

This is a great book and well worth reading in its entirety.

Read the next installment in the series here.

Part 4 - Pride

This is the fourth installment of a series (see the first installment here) summarizing the 1994 book Dream City: Race, Power, and the Decline of Washington, D.C.by Harry Jaffe and Tom Sherwood. This book has recently been republished as an ebook and a paper book. HBO has plans to use material from the book to make a movie about the life of Marion Barry.

Chapter 3: Pride

In 1967, Williard Wurtz was U.S. Secretary of Labor. He was concerned about summer unrest in Washington fueled "by poverty and hopelessness among black Americans in the big cities."

"The philosophy was simple: Federal funds would be applied to cure the root problems and symptoms of the inner-city poor" (Kindle location 833).

Meanwhile, on May 1, 19-year-old Clarence T. "Fat Nasty" Brooker was shot in the back by police answering a complaint from a store owner. His treatment was delayed and he "died a few hours later of massive internal bleeding"  (l. 856).

His friend, Rufus "Catfish" Mayfield, a juvenile ex-con, testified that police had shot Brooker in cold blood, but the coroner ruled it a "justifiable homocide" (l. 861).

Mayfield's testimony brought him to the attention of Marion Barry, who had recently resigned from the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) to create a local political movement of his own.

"Barry's dilemma was not unlike Willard Wirtz's: Neither truly understood the culture of these urban black men. Most had dropped out of school. many had police records, and more than a few were gang members and carried guns. Marion Barry was a former small-town Eagle Scout who'd made it through nineteen years of schooling" (l. 879).

"... Mayfield agreed to be Barry's guide. He taught him the dialect of the street, the walk, the mannerisms, the culture" (l. 882).

Barry found another ally in Carroll Harvey, the director of the DC government's office of community renewal, in working to calm tensions.

Wirtz went to a church near where Brooker was shot to unveil a new jobs program. The announcement met with a reaction of hostile silence, organized by Barry. Barry insulted Wirtz and his program in the church. But outside the church, he offered to talk. Wirtz accepted.

Barry and allies quickly developed an alternative proposal.

"They wanted to set up an independent company that would hire teenagers hanging out on the corners to clean the ghetto streets. The daring aspect was that few believed that street toughs would work for a wage. Barry's proposition challenged the conventional wisdom" (l. 942).

"... The first deal -- between Marion Barry and the white liberal establishment -- was struck. He would maintain peace in the streets, and the liberals would foot the bill, whether it paid for a job-training project or a political campaign to come. This fundamental transaction was the cornerstone of Barry's political machine" (l. 948).

Barry and allies established Pride, Inc., with Mayfield was chair. His police record enraged House Republicans, but the federally-funded street-cleaning program went ahead.

President Lyndon Johnson's DC home-rule law failed in 1965. In 1967, another proposal was working its way through a hostile Congress. As part of the proposal, Johnson decided to appoint Walter Washington mayor. Washington successfully insisted on control of the police against White House and Congressional opposition.

"House District Committee chair John McMillan wasn't pleased. When Walter Washington sent his first budget to Congress, McMillan thanked him by delivering a truckload of watermelons to the District Building" (l. 1001).

Johnson also appointed John Hechinger, who headed a chain of hardware stores bearing the family's name, to be chair of the city council.

Barry criticized the appointments. "They should be people who could get elected if there were an election. These men couldn't make it for dog catcher," Barry said (l. 1030).

Pride, Inc.'s pilot street-cleaning program was a success, and Wirtz gave them another $1.5 million.

At the same time, Rufus Mayfield was developing his own following as a community organizer. Barry came to see him as a competitor and edged him out of Pride, Inc.

Soon after, civil rights leader Stokely Carmichael came to DC. Carmichael saw Barry as a collaborator with DC's white ruling class.

Speaking to Barry, Carmichael quoted Che Guevara: "... the duty of revolutionaries is to lead the revolution" (l. 1081).

"A few months later, Carmichael would see how hard it is to control a real revolution" (l. 1082).

Cheater's Guide to Dream City continues next week

Another installment will appear today, Friday, July 4, 2014. Further installments will appear on successive Fridays. All posts will be cross-posted on the blog Short Articles about Long Meetings.

Full disclosure: I have a commercial relationship with Amazon. I will receive a very small portion of the money people spend after clicking on an Amazon link on this site.

This is a great book and well worth reading in its entirety.

Proceed directly to the next installment here.