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Illlllluilllllllllllllllllllill WILS 00/20/95 WILSON LIBRARY N C COLLECTION UNC-CH CHAPEL HILL * *CHWIL NC 27514 E93-NUMBER46 DURHAM, NORTH CAROLINA - SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 29, 2014 TELEPHONE (919) 682-2913 PRICE: 30 Former DC Mayor Marion Barry dies at 78 By Ben Nuckois WASHINGTON (AP) - Di- ive and flamboyant, madden- and beloved, Marion Barry shone every politician in the .year history of District ofCo- nbia self-rule. But for many, legacy was not defined by the complishments and failures of four terms as mayor and long vice on the D.C. Council. Instead, Barry will be re- mbered for a single night in downtown Washington hotel in and the grainy video that iwed him lighting a crack it in the company of a much- anger woman. When FBI ents burst in, he referred to her 111 an expletive. She “set me ,” Barry said. Barry died Nov. 23 at 78. His lily said in statement that try died shortly after midnight the United Medical Center, er having been released from ward University Hospital on iv. 22. The year was 1990, and crack caine had exploded in the dis et, turning it into the nation’s irder capital. In his third term, man known as the “Mayor t Life” became a symbol of a indering city. Federal authorities had been restigating him for years for alleged ties to drug suspects,. 1 while he denied using drugs, late-night partying was tak- 5 a toll on his job performance. The arrest .and subsequent nviction - a jury deadlocked most counts, convicting him a single count of drug pos- ssion - was a turning point for my. He had been elected to first term as mayor in 1978 th broad support from across : city. With his good looks, arisma and background in the vil rights movement, he was graced the dynamic leader i city’s young government eded. The Washington Post idorsed him in each of his first ree mayoral runs, although the 186 endorsement was unenthu- astic. Barry’s six-month term in deral prison was hardly the id of his political career. But forever changed how it was irceived. To some, he was a pa- ah and an embarrassment. But many district residents, par- cularly lower-income blacks, was still a hero, someone ifairly persecuted for personal FORMER WASHINGTON D.C. MAYOR MARION BARRY U.S. REP. G.K. BUTTERFIELD Barry returned to the D.C. ouncil in 1992, representing e poorest of the city’s eight ards. Two years later, he won is fourth and final term as may- i The electorate was starkly ivided along racial lines, and any advised those who had not ipported his candidacy to “get ver it.” “Marion Barry changed inerica with his unmitigated all to stand up in the ashes of here he had fallen and come ack to win,” poet Maya Ange la said in 1999. Barry’s triumph, though, was tort-lived. In 1995, with the city irting with bankruptcy from ears of bloated, unaccountable overnment, much of it under arry, Congress stripped him of inch of his power and installed financial control board. Barry eld authority over little more tan.the city’s parks, libraries nd community access cable TV iation. He decided against seek- aga fifth term. Barry spent a few years forking as a municipal bond onsultant, but he couldn’t stay way from politics. In 2004, he eturned to the council, again epresenting Ward 8, where he etnained beloved. Many con- tituents still referred to him as Mayor Barry,” and he was re- lected in 2008 and 2012. Barry was born March 6, 1936, to Marion and Mattie Barry, in the small Mississippi delta town of Itta Bena, and was raised in Memphis, Tenn., after the death of his father, a share- cropper. While an undergraduate at LeMoyne College (now LeM- oyne-Owen College), Barry picked up the nickname “Shep” in reference to Soviet propagan dist Dmitri Shepilov for his ar dent support of the civil rights movement. Barry began using Shepilov as his middle name. Barry did graduate work in chemistry at Fisk University in Nashville, Term., earning a mas ter’s degree. He left school short of a doctorate to work in the civil rights movement. His political rise began in 1960, when he became the first national chairman of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Com mittee, which sent young people into the South to register black voters and became known as one of the most militant civil rights groups of that era. Barry’s work with the com mittee brought him to Washing ton, where he became immersed in local issues, joining boycotts of the bus system and leading rallies in support of the city’s fledgling home rule efforts. In 1970, The Post wrote: “Four years ago widely consid ered a young Black Power Mili tant with almost no constituency, (Barry) has become a man who is listened to - if not fully accept ed - on all sides.” Barry’s activism propelled him into local politics, first as a member of the Board of Educa tion and then in 1974 as a mem ber of the first elected city coun cil organized under home rule legislation. In 1977, he was wounded by a shotgun blast in the Hanafi Mus lim takeover of D.C.’s city hall. A young reporter was killed. The shooting was credited with strengthening him politically. In 1978, he defeated incum bent Mayor Walter Washington - the city's first home rule mayor - in the Democratic primary and went on to easily win the general election. Barry’s early years in office were marked by improvement in many city services and a dramat ic expansion of the government payroll, creating a thriving black middle class in the nation’s capi tal. Barry established a summer jobs program that gave many young people their first work ex perience and earned him politi cal capital. In his second term, the dis trict’s finances were rockier, and some of his appointees were caught up in corruption scandals. STEVIE WONDER Obama awards Presidential Medal of Freedom By Darlene Superville WASHINGTON (AP) - President Barack Obama is presenting America’s highest civilian honor to 19 artists, activists, public ser vants and others. The distinguished group receiving a Presidential Medal of Free dom includes actress Meryl Streep, Ethel Kennedy, widow of the late Sen. Robert Kennedy, singer-songwriter Stevie Wonder and Rep. John Dingell, a Democrat and the longest-serving member of Con gress. Dingell is retiring at the end of the year. Others being recognized at a White House ceremony Nov. 24 are music theater composer Stephen Sondheim, NBC journalist Tom Brokaw and author Isabel Allende. The list also includes Native American activist Suzan Harjo, ac tress Marlo Thomas, economist Robert Solow, golfer Charles Sif- ford, former Rep. Abner Mikva of Illinois and physicist Mildred Dresselhaus. Posthumous medals will go to six individuals, among them civil rights workers James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Sehw- erner, who were slain in 1964 as they participated in a historic voter registration drive among African-Americans in Mississippi. Other posthumous awards will go to choreographer Alvin Ailey and Reps. Patsy Mink of Hawaii and Edward Roybal of California, founders of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus. The Presidential Medal of Freedom is reserved for individuals who have made “meritorious contributions” to U.S. security, world peace or cultural endeavors. Barry’s turkey giveaway to go on despite his death WASHINGTON (AP) - Marion Barry’s annual turkey giveaway will go on despite his death. Barry’s spokeswoman LaToya Foster said Sunday at an early morning press conference at United Medical Center, where Barry died, that the annual Thanksgiving turkey give- away for needy residents would continue because “that’s what he would have wanted.” The giveaway is scheduled for Tuesday at Union Temple Baptist Church in southeast Washington. Television station WJLA-TV (http://bit.ly/! lJ2acS ) re ported that 3,000 turkeys were scheduled to be handed out. The 78-year-old Barry died early Sunday after collapsing outside his home. Barry served four terms as the city’s mayor and had been the councilman for Ward 8, the poorest of the city’s eight wards, since 2004. NC Rep. Butterfield Is Next Black Caucus Chairman RALEIGH (AP) - North Carolina U.S. Rep. G.K. But terfield is the chairman of the Congressional Black Cau cus for the next two years. The 67-year-old Wilson attorney and former state Su preme Court justice has served in the U.S. House for more than 10 years, representing the 1st Congressional District. Caucus members elected the Democrat on Wednesday af ter serving eight years within the group’s leadership, most recently as first vice chairman. Butterfield’s chairmanship officially begins in early January. His office said the caucus will be the largest in the group’s history, with at least 45 members. Butterfield’s district covers all or parts of 24 northeast ern and eastern Piedmont counties, stretching from Eliza beth City to Durham. Former North Carolina Congressman Mel Watt also was caucus chairman in 2005 and 2006. Voter ID Laws - Advocates continue fight against Tenn voter ID law By Lucas L. Johnson II NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) - A legendary Tennessee lawyer whose push for voting rights dated back to the civil rights movement died last summer, not long before a new federal report found evidence that he might have had a point about that state’s voter identification law. Now many of those who worked closely with him say they intend to keep the cause alive. George Barrett died in August, two months before a new report by the Government Accountability Office found that states - including Tennessee - which toughened their voter ID laws saw steeper drops in election turnout than those that did not. While there were few reports of voting problems in Tennessee following the Nov. 4 general election, voter advocates say the report justifies the need to examine the effects of the voter ID law in Tennes see, one of 33 states to enact laws obligating voters to show a photo ID at the polls. In .doing so they hope to rekindle the efforts of Barrett, a one-man crusader whose courtroom advocacy dated back to the lunch-counter sit-ins of the early 1960s, when it was rare for a white attorney to take up the cause of black college students. “We are running with the momentum George generated,” said Hedy Weinberg, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Tennessee, which supported Barrett in a lawsuit filed in 2012 against the state’s voter ID law. “His inspiration continues to give us the energy and the wherewithal to move forward, to ensure that access to the ballot box is available to all Tennessee citizens.” In a career that spanned more than 50 years, Barrett also repre sented corporate whistleblowers, fought for labor rights, tackled se curities fraud, and handled a case that ultimately desegregated the state’s public colleges and universities. But he was passionate about the vote, and battled disenfranchise ment up until his death at the age of 86. “He remained undaunted in his pursuit of the franchise for all,” Weinberg said. The GAO report’s evidence wasn’t around when Barrett was pur suing his lawsuit against the state’s voter ID law, which an appeals court rejected. The report compared election turnout in Kansas and Tennessee - which tightened voter ID requirements between the 2008 and 2012 elections - to voting in four states that didn’t change their identifica tion requirements. It estimated that reductions in voter turnout were about 2 percent greater in Kansas and from 2 percent to 3 percent steeper in Tennes see than they were in the other states examined. The four other states, which did not make their voter ID laws stricter, were Alabama, Ar kansas, Delaware, and Maine.
The Carolina Times (Durham, N.C.)
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Nov. 29, 2014, edition 1
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