rned him kudos with the media. In November 1982, Marion Barry was elected to a second term; he won 80 percent of the vote.In October of 1984 the Barry Administration scored a major financial victory. A financial review of the city’s records was in fact so successful that for the first time ever the District would be able to raise money outside of Congress by entering the bond market. Things seemed to be moving along perfectly. By nearly everyone’s account the District of Columbia had a mayor that was hard working and charismatic. He was seen as man of the people by those that lived in his city, and trustworthy by Congress and others. Barry even became to be a player in the field of national politics. At the 1984 Democratic National Convention in San Francisco, Barry had the honor of placing Jesse Jackson’s name in nomination for the Presidency. Behind the scenes, there were some cracks in the picture.Rumors of the mayor’s drug use never seemed to disappear. Mystery surrounded Barry’s activity at a Christmas party at This Is It, a downtown nightclub, which Barry attended in December 1982. In June of 1984, a month before Barry attended the Democratic Convention in San Francisco, his long time friend and associate Karen Johnson was arrested and pled guilty for a variety of drug charges. Later that month, when a federal grand jury asked Johnson if she had ever sold drugs to the mayor, she refused to answer and was found in contempt of court. After the elections in 1984, the Barry Administration was again rocked by scandal. Barry was forced to handover evidence to a US Attorney’s Office that showed that deputy mayor Ivanhoe Donaldson stole close to $200,000 in city funds. Although Barry was not implicated, this tarnished Barry’s image. Many felt that once Ivanhoe, one of Barry’s closest friends and top aides, was charged, that Barry’s own fall from grace was inevitable.Caro...
