Rotten Library > Biographies > US Officials > Marion Barry Marion Barry Marion Barry is easily one of the most colorful public officals in United States history. After serving as mayor of Washington, DC for 12 years, he was arrested for smoking crack in a hotel room in 1990 (caught on hidden camera no less) and forced to step down. After serving six months in a federal prison, he was inexplicibly re-elected in 1994. Perhaps Mayor Barry's legacy can best be described in his own words: "If you take out the killings, Washington actually has a very very low crime rate." "First, it was not a strip bar, it was an erotic club. And second, what can I say? I'm a night owl." "The brave men who died in Vietnam, more than 100% of which were black, were the ultimate sacrifice." "I am a great mayor; I am an upstanding Christian man; I am an intelligent man; I am a deeply educated man; I am a humble man." Barry is a former Eagle Scout.

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