for The Washington Times. By the next day, Barry scheduled a press conference on the staff retreat and my potential scoop became a routine story buried inside the paper.
Barry was a friend to many reporters, giving them fodder for stories. At the funeral, WUSA 9 television reporter and anchor Bruce Johnson recalled that when Barry underwent a kidney transplant operation at Howard University Hosptial he turned it into an opportunity to talk about Howard University. The waiting room on his floor was filled with reporters.
There was a press conference the day he left the hospital at which he held hands with his donor Kim Dickens. In my mind I thought, “Lord Marion has sweet talked a woman into giving up a kidney.”
After he left the mayor’s office he ran for and was repeatedly elected to the Ward 8 Council seat and even though I covered religion and events in Prince George’s County, the heavily black enclave neighboring the District, he frequently called me with a scoop or story idea. During the Democratic primary last April, Barry campaigned for then Council Chair Vincent Gray and talked about what he himself would do if he were running for mayor.
Prince George’s County Executive Rushern Baker, Rep. Donna Edwards (D-Md.) and several members of the P.G. County Council were at Barry’s funeral. Baker joked about the county being “Ward 9,” where many former Washingtonians migrated, but kept close ties to D.C. It was also noted that in July when former county executive Wayne Curry died ,Barry was one of the last people to leave the First Baptist Church of Glenarden in Prince George’s, Md.
Barry knew what I was a religion reporter after he left the mayoralty, but he also knew a good political story didn't have to be covered by a political reporters. Days before the November general election he telephoned me and told me to get to Johnson Memorial Baptist Church because Council member and then-Democratic mayoral nominee Muriel Bowser would be addressing the Baptist Ministers Conference of Washington D.C. and Vicinity. Barry told me, “Stop feeling sorry for yourself. You cover religion don’t you? Muriel Bowser is going to be speaking to the ministers and I am introducing her.”
Shortly after Barry died, my colleague Deneen Brown allowed me to team up with her to write about Barry's annual Ward 8 Turkey Giveaway in which more than 3,000 people walked away from Union Temple Baptist Church in Southeast D.C. with turkeys and vegetables.
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Although his drug conviction forced him from the mayoralty, Barry came back as mayor and again, later, as a D.C. Council member.