Read the play, “Mayor 4 Life” as 21 years ago Marion B was “BUSTED”
Wash Syndicate
This framed paper was prominently hung in the office of an editor at The Wash Times.
The below play was read at the 2007 Page-to-Stage Festival at the Kennedy Center.
Mayor 4 Life
Setting:
Downtown bus stop on 7th Street. 8:15 pm. Busy evening. Lots of foot traffic.
Enter Ezekiel
Ezekiel
(late 40’s, homeless man, has a stack of papers under his arm, he sells papers for Street Sense. He has a white painter’s bucket and some drum sticks with him. He is known to set up shop after a Wizards game and rock with the other street performers. He takes a seat. He begins conversation with passersby and other people waiting on the buses.
Has on a Redskins jersey, jeans, and has a badge that shows he is an authorized vendor licensed to sell papers.
He is mentally unstable and this is obvious in the way that he acts. He has lived in shelters and survived on the streets since the early ‘90s and this caused him to develop his paranoia and erratic behavior.)
What’s up, what’s up with you baby boy? Yeah, you want a paper? Only $1 and you get yourself the new copy of Street Sense, yeah, you get my recent essay on our Current Council Member from Ward 8, Marion B. Here man, take a copy.
Ok, ok, ok you want to hear what I wrote, well how ‘bout a story that’ll help you better understand, ok, yeah, that’s a bet yungin’ here I go.
What was it? One of the bammas from Shakespeare said, All the world’s a stage and all the fly women and fly guys just players, shoot the city will play you like a game if you let it, you heard me? This is the city where stars are born and dreams broken. Don’t get it confused. I got a story for ya’ll on this grand and glorious evening. Here I go, don’t try to stop me!
Yeah, I remember the day and exactly where I was, you know it’s one of those moments that you don’t never forget, like when you heard that Dr. King had been shot, I can remember both. They both made the front page of the Post. But yeah, man it was a Thursday night. I was sittin’ back watchin’ LA Law as I always did back in them younger days, I never got to see the end of the episode you know, because, well you know what happened on January 18, 1990 in Washington, DC, so anyway, I’m just sittin’ and I remember I look at the clock and it turns 10:17 pm and BOOM!
“This is WRC-NBC Channel 4, we interrupt your regularly scheduled program for a late breaking story.”
And there’s Mr. Jim Vance reporter just sittin’ there, now any of you homegrown folks know the man’s history, you want to talk about Marion B as a Washington Institution, so is Mr. Jim Vance reporter, he’s been on since 69 or 70, one of them years, but you know, he’s had his own problems, but we’ve supported him, and now you know he’s one of the last folks left on Channel 4, but I digress with my thesis.
So, sittin’ there is Mr. Jim Vance reporter and he says, our sources tonight have reported that DC Mayor, Marion Barry was arrested at a hotel in downtown Washington tonight on alleged drug charges in a joint sting operation by the FBI and a special unit of the Metropolitan Police Department.
Man, I remember sitting there, frozen like a ice cube. Sayin’ damn, man, it’s about time he got caught up! I was thinkin’ is this a Greek tragedy, a DC tragedy, or a joke?
See, the media and the Feds, they were interchangeable elements in “The Plan.” Yea, the PLAN to have Marion B afraid of his own shadow. It was the new McCarythism conceived by all the pink faces. See Marion B didn’t carry no water for no white man. See the Post doesn’t vote, the people do. Word on the street was, is it bad to use drugs?, yeah maybe, but not enough to keep him out of office. But see he got flagrant with it. What did he say? Something like, “Poor Marion nothing, poor them!”
See Marion B helped to grow the middle class, it put fear in ‘em, jumped minority contracts in a minority city from 3% to 38%. Made sure everyone who needed a job had a job, 270,000 eligible voters, more than 52,000 on the city’s payroll. That’s how you get elected boss. A secretary in DC public schools made more than a secretary at the White House, that’s thanks to Marion B, now if that ain’t Black Power, I don’t know what it is.
As I was sayin’, I don’t know anyone who went as hard as Marion B did back in those days. Yes sir, I got a anecdotic story that sets that stage for yall. You see I had a little cousin who went to Spingarn High school in the late ’80s when they got some medal from Reagan, yea, you know, Just Say No Nancy, for being a drug free school and all. Well one of my old little cousins there told me one of his pusher friends served Marion B’s aides in the stairwell. Marion B was makin’ a speech in the main gym about stayin’ drug free. Now as far as I know this wasn’t that rock, it was just some city weed, but for somebody with the Mayor to even know how to cop some weed, don’t look good on behalf of the mayor. You rollin’ with the wrong crowd Marion B.
But yeah, man, back to my story at hand, ya’ll keep distractin’ me. So I’m sitting there, stuck on stupid in my little apartment, so yeah man, the stations just went for broke. Flipped through the stations and in 2 minutes every station was runnin’ with the story, Fox was already on and I remember one of their reporters laughin’ like he knew it was coming and it was kinda funny. Shit, it was, if you think of it like that, you know like planning to report a story, preparing it and then it goes and happens like you practiced. Yeah, man, crazy.
See what yall gotta understand about this whole situation is how much heat was on Marion B. Take it back to Marion B’s rise to power you’d understand this man was a man of the people and in Washington the people was, shit I don’t care how much they try to re-invent these communities, the people in DC was and is, are, will always be black. Now I got nuthin wrong with white folk, see they’re white niggers too, but I got problems with these new white folks that be movin’ into the city makin’ it harder for me and my brethren to survive out here. See these new white folks, and shit I wouldn’t be remissed, these new black folks too, they don’t know what Marion B meant to this city, not only this city but black people in the country, in the world. Marion B was Mayor of the Most Powerful City in the whole world and he was a Black Mayor!
Marion B came up with the people, his roots are deep in the community, in his days with SNCC, that’s the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee for you historians. He was the first National Chairman, yeah, he came to DC in 1965 in the efforts for statehood. So Marion B bein’ down in the struggle with the people was no fake, it’s in his blood you see.
When he took over as Mayor, when he first won in ‘78 it was a big deal. With him being shot and all by those renegade Muslims down at the DC building, his platform was set, you know he was gonna run for Mayor and win, and he did. You know, people looked at him like he was a superhero after he got shot, larger than life, nothing could stop Marion B, except you know, them drugs. Them drugs and things are the only thing that stop our great heroes and leaders. You know we broke away from slavery only to be transformed by drugs into our own slaveships in shoes but that’s another story for another day. Back to my shit here that I’m tryin to tell yall.
Yeah, at first folks, you see at first folks thought it was politically motivated, ‘cause Marion B was gonna announce that Sunday later on in the week he was gonna seek another term. He was already raisin’ money for his run at a 4th term, but the Vista Hotel ended any of them thoughts.
(Cell phone rings, hip hop ring tone. Ezekiel pulls it out.)
Said aside
Yeah, man, I’ll be down there at around 10:30. I’m tellin’ a story to some folks now. I’ll holler at you tonight. Alright peace and hair grease.
I remember the media coverage was something like an adventure. Bogota, Columbia, had “Drug-Addict Mayor” on their front page.
Blamed US consumption for the problems in their country. Oh yeah, Senator John Warren, a Republican from VA, said, “The story will be unbelievable across the oceans.”
At first, I was with the young people. I remember the youngsters sayin’ Let me see the tape! Show me the FBI tape! Where’s the tape? See Marion B is a legend in the city for them yungin’s. They decided to have school that Friday and students all over the city left school and protested in defense of Marion B, well kinda, not really, I mean there was some signs of support, but a lot of the youngsters felt betrayed by Marion B.
The youngest kids took it the hardest really, because even in the hottest days, Marion B would make it a point to visit 2 to 3 schools a day, tellin’ the children that Stay Drug-Free message.
He would go all over the city, mostly up in the hoods and give little lectures about drugs, and the little kids, 7, 8 years old would get up there during question time and look Marion B straight dead in the eye and ask the Mayor himself, if he did drugs, because they had heard rumors in the streets that the Mayor did drugs. Marion B would just look right back at that student, then look over the whole class and say, “The news media always focuses on “the negatives”. Some journalists would rather make the news than report the news. But I’m a trained chemist, I knows what drugs can do and I know that you can’t be a good mayor high on drugs and alcohol, and I want to be a good mayor. I know that you have to keep your body drug-free so that your mind will function well. And I’m going to continue to fight for a drug-free DC.”
Yeah, man, got my first summer job because of Marion B, yeah, went through the Mayor’s Youth Leadership Institute that he set-up too. One of my friends was youth mayor, junior year at McKinley.
My thesis, my thesis, I wander sometimes. Back to my story children. See there was divided opinion from the get. People sayin’ he deserved it, people sayin’ he’s innocent. All I know is everyone was tryin’ to get Marion B and he got himself. I doubted it kinda, but not really. I just didn’t want to accept it, I didn’t want to accept that they had got Marion B too. Downtown, a white man in a suit shouted, Quit, Barry, Quit to a response from a young sister, “You still got my vote.” It was like that out in these streets yungin, it was raw!
I remember the guys in the street sayin’ You all right Barry, you ain’t done no more damage than the white man do everyday!
So where was I? Oh yeah, the conspiracy acquisitions and theories. Yea, see there was this guy, US Attorney Jay B Stephens, man you could see it in his face, he had it out for Marion B. He had that Teddy Roosevelt quote on his wall, Speak softly and carry a big stick.
I can remember Stephens’ press conference that next day, “This is a personal tragedy for the defendant in this case, but the narcotics abuse is also a personal tragedy for many in this city. It is not a victimless crime, families, children, communities, and as last night demonstrated, even the city is a victim.”
Now you see Stephens, Stephens had reason to do this, he said he was trying to end the rampant corruption of DC officials, but he was really just tryin’ to keep his job because of the Charles Lewis affair. Yea, the Ramada Inn situation where police were called back because they knew Marion B was up there. See the grand jury thing was going on at the same time. What’s a matter of the stars is that thirty minutes after Marion B was arraigned Friday morning, Charles Lewis on the second floor of the DC court building was sentenced to 15 months. Crazy, huh?
In that case, they were fixin’ to hit Marion B with perjury if not them extra drug charges. I mean come on, Marion B goes too hard, had two cases on him at the same time, both for drugs, in a city flooded by drugs, it’s like the darkside of poetic justice.
Yeah, that boy Stephens, well known in the community too, he was the one who got all those charges to stick to that kingpin Rayful Edmonds. They kept that yungin down at Quantico to make sure he wasn’t gonna pull no shit on ‘em. Yea, that boy was no joke. I don’t know why people thought he was jokin’. It was then I knew Marion B was going down.
Then right after Stephens give his statement, the man of the hour Marion B emerges, follows up and gives his statement. Something like, don’t ask me no questions because I can’t answer them, it is in the hands of the court system, I’m on my way, I’m mindin’ my business to run the city government.
See, what happened to Marion B was a set-up, yeah, man the FBI conspired like a mug. They got this old model, yeah, Rasheeda Moore, cover of Essence Magazine December ‘77, they got her from all the way out California. Yeah she enticed him, they got him when he was going too hard and wasn’t looking both ways before crossing the street. The Man tricked the man.
When he was processed, he had to fill out some paperwork.
Present Status: Employed
Where: Office of the Mayor
Type of Work: Mayor
A couple of days later he signed over the power to run the government to his city administrator.
So after 3 days, Marion B come out after they play the FBI tape of him over and over again all over the world, he comes out and says ”The events of the past three days have been the most difficult of my life, more difficult than fighting my way out of the poverty of a black youth born in the segregated Deep South, more difficult than the fear and hatred I faced as a civil rights leader in the 1960s. To all the people who love me and worry about me, the best way to show your appreciation for me and our city, and our family is to join together as a united community. We will make it. It’s going to be a lonely journey, but I stand, and God stands with me.”
What I remember the most is when I saw some interview on TV with a 7th grader at Hart Junior High in Congress Heights, lil’ boy asked if this meant they were going to take away the welfare.
But you know, it’s like Dr. King once said, “Truth crushed to the earth shall rise again.”
Next time I see you I got another one for you, but that right there is one of my best stories, that’s a gem.
So, lastly, I leave you with a poem for you to think on.
I wrote it myself and it’s copy written.
Twas the night before Christmas Oct. 25th, 1989 and all through D.C.
Not a creature was stirring except Marion B
The streets were abandoned as the drug dealers slept
Until the Mayor in his limo through Southeast he crept
A silver spoon hung from his neck with great care
In hopes that Charles Lewis would soon be there
And all at once arose such a clatter
He halted his limo to see what was the matter
He jumped from his limo lickety-split
Five minutes later the Mayor was lit
He snorted and shoveled that coke up his nose
His eyes were all bloodshot and glowed red like a rose
Back to the limo he ran like a flash
Now that it’s gone let’s go home to my stash
Now I heard him exclaim with no hint of strife
I’ll snort if I like, I’m MAYOR 4 Life!
You, know I’ve tired myself out talkin’ to yall. But yall be cool and easy and I’ll catch yall on the rebound.
Here now you owe me a couple of dollars. You need to read my story, here take some papers for your friends and neighbors, here, yeah, thanks. Street Sense, make sure you only buy from licensed vendors. (shows his badge that validates him as an authorized vendor)
Alright ya’ll, Peace and hair grease.
(Ezekiel hops on the X2 headed to Minnesota Avenue.)
The End
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