Unless something unexpected happens, America will soon have its first “Afrocentric” big-city mayor – and perhaps its most remarkable political survivalist. In race-obsessed Washington, Barry shrewdly tailored the theme of political victimhood to the black community’s pride and belief in redemption. He put his sins on his resume – evidence that he alone could save the city’s “last, least and lost.” His salvation – and the city’s – would become one with his victory. And the route to that salvation lay not only in finding God and getting clean – but in achieving a deeper sense of African-American identity. So Nation of Islam youths campaigned for him; he and his allies called Louis Farrakhan a friend. Any resulting criticism from the (white) establishment would just add to Barry’s appeal – and his sense of mission.
Though Washington isn’t America, its local politics have national meaning. Its voters last week made it clear that even well-educated blacks and liberal whites can no longer agree on who their political heroes are. Barry won only 5 percent of the white vote. But blacks – including a large swath of the middle- and upper-middle class – gave him nearly 50 percent of their vote in a three-way, all-black race. “It was a “blue-curtain conversion’,” said Robert Johnson, founder of the Washington-based Black Entertainment Television (BET). “Many middle-class African-Americans didn’t want to associate with the Barry campaign. But once they got behind those curtains, the truth came out.”
Barry didn’t use explicit racial language in his revival. He didn’t have to. In a city where races are starkly split by geography – and where African-Americans themselves are sharply divided by social class – Barry made himself the “blackest” politician by virtue of where he lived, what he wore, what church he attended and the friends he chose. Ironically, being busted – and saved – allowed him to become every shopworn politician’s dream: an anti-establishment insurgent. “Barry gave voters a chance to send a message to the system,” said Ron Walters, a Howard University political scientist. “And the message was: “Get off our backs’.”
Barry’s new identity took only two years to construct. Returning from prison in 1992, he abandoned his middle-class neighborhood and moved to a less tony area east of the Anacostia River. Throughout the campaign, his volunteers called Councilman John Ray, one of his rivals, “the Third Ward’s candidate” – a reference to the part of the city where most affluent whites live. And they tapped widespread sentiment that incumbent Mayor Sharon Pratt Kelly, a former corporate executive, was an ineffectual tool of downtown interests.
Barry embraced a new circle of friends – closer to the streets, to Farrakhan and to black-controlled money. He divorced his politically aloof, fashion-model-thin third wife, Effi. He married Cora Masters, 49, a longtime activist in the black community who teaches political science at the University of the District of Columbia. When the two wedded, African motifs were everywhere – from the drum rhythms to the tribal dances to the African unity symbols on the bride’s suit.
Beyond his own family, Barry’s closest advisers became the Rev. Willie F. Wilson, pastor of a popular church in a poor neighborhood, and Eugene Roderick (Rock) Newman, a wealthy, street-wise boxing promoter who manages heavyweight Riddick Bowe. They’re all advocates of economic self-help. Last fall they joined black ministers in supporting Project Ujamaa, which urged blacks to switch bank accounts from white-owned to black-owned institutions. “If the major banks would lend money in this community,” Barry declared, “we wouldn’t have to do this.”
Barry and his crowd share an admiration for the work of Farrakhan. When most black leaders abandoned Barry after his arrest in 1990, Farrakhan was helpful. Seeking support, Barry made an appearance at a Nation of Islam rally, and Fruit of Islam security men returned the favor by attending Barry’s trial. Barry and Farrakhan have been Newman’s guests at prizefights. Wilson says that he and Farrakhan are “good friends,” though they have no “direct relationship.”
With his new friends, Barry mounted a classic street campaign. Masters stressed registration; Newman supplied cash. The effort enrolled thousands of new voters, many of them youths. Bowe went door-to-door. Newman admits to spending about $13,000. On Election Day there were rumors that he had hired fleets of vans and buses to take voters to the polls – which he denies. “They even had me ferrying voters in my white Rolls, but it’s not true,” laughs Newman, who lives in Wesley Heights, an exclusive part of the “white” Third Ward.
Now Barry faces three challenges – personal, financial and political. He has to show – day by day – that his personal redemption is real. So far there’s no evidence that he’s strayed. Friends are counting on his wife to keep it that way. “He has tremendous respect for Cora,” says one. “There’s no way he’ll get out of line as long as she’s around.” One misstep could be politically fatal.
He has to redeem the city’s finances, a promise he made in victory speeches last week. He is fondly remembered – by working-class and professional blacks alike – for the jobs he provided. In Washington, where one in seven households contains a city employee, that memory lured votes. Ronald Douglass, a government worker with a 14-year-old son, believes Barry will improve schools, provide services – and find a summer job for his boy. “People have to look beyond the hotel room and the crack,” he says. Yet Barry’s supporters either forgot or didn’t seem to mind that his earlier stewardship created a fiscal crisis that Kelly has been unable to solve.
Politically, Barry has to move beyond the divisive tactics he practiced – and he promised last week to do that, too. But there will be new temptations to play on race. Congress will hound him. Jesse Jackson, who says he might run for president as an independent in 1996, cozied up last week. Jackson told Newsweek that he had helped persuade an independent candidate to drop out of the general-election race – a move that makes a serious challenge by GOP nominee Carol Schwartz more difficult.
Meanwhile, Republicans were busy exploiting the racial antagonisms Barry’s victory exposed. They were privately giddy, publicly funereal. Barry’s win was “a tragic moment for this country,” intoned GOP House Whip Newt Gingrich. And Democrats were flummoxed. Though party officials wanly congratulated Barry, Bill Clinton’s aides privately were chagrined at having to share the stage with an ex-con. But Barry and his supporters were jubilant. “I once was lost, but now I’m found,” he said last week. For the moment, that was enough.
