The Last of the Black Emperors: The Hollow Comeback of Marion Barry in a New Age of Black Leaders

by Jonetta Rose Barras

"The 1990 FBI videotape of Washington, D.C. mayor Marion Barry smoking crack transfixed television viewers nationwide. Shouting now-notorious obscenities at the woman who helped agents trap him, Barry was publicly disgraced, his personal and political life apparently wrecked. But in 1994, following his release from federal prison, Barry was elected once more to serve as mayor of the nation's capital.How did Barry pull off his political resurrection?...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0963124668
• ISBN13: 9780963124661
• Release Date: June 1998
• Publisher: Bancroft Press
• Length: 332 Pages
• Weight: 1.65 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 6.3" x 9.3"

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What Others In-The-Know Say

Praise for Jonetta Rose Barras and The Last of the Black EmperorsThe Last of the Black Emperors is wonderful...fascinating, colorful, exciting, honest, and stylishly written...An eye-opener for America that everybody will be talking about this summer... -Ralph Collier, host of the nationally syndicated radio program, "I Hear America Talking" A deeply rewarding book. Ms. Barras is lucid both in her writing and her reportage. She deftly places Mayor Barry as the last beneficiary of a bygone era in black politics. All said and done, Marion Barry has been read his political obituary. -Max Rodriguez, publisher, The Quarterly Review of Books This honest and in-depth look at the life and times of our national capital's most tenacious mayor not only helps us to better understand Marion Barry the man, but it also vividly expresses the unique political and social character of one of the last surviving city-states. Jonetta Rose Barras brings us an insightful and provocative perspective to the successes, tribulations, and resurrection of this "Old Guard" political activist-turned "Mayor for Life." Her book will forever stand as a historical analysis of the politics of the post-civil rights era and a prophecy for the future of American blacks in our nation's political framework. -Armstrong Williams, nationally syndicated columnist, author of Beyond BlameAn eloquent and disturbing book. Barras relocates the transfixing story of Mayor Marion Barry's rise and fall and rise and fall from the arena of electoral politics to the realm of cultural myth and religious belief. In a political sense, Barras's book tells us that we will have to leave behind the baggage of racial superstition if we are to confront the real problems of the nation's capital and our other cities in pain. Barras' book leaves you with more questions than answers, but they are questions that we dare not avoid as we move into the next century. -Jamin B. Raskin, Professor, Washington College of Law, American UniversityMarion Barry has done his stubborn best to clothe himself in a hopefully impenetrable cloak of insufferable hubris and racial pride. With clarity, passion, and often outright dismay, Jonetta Rose Barras unravels Barry's cloak - and shows that this particular emperor is about as naked as naked gets. -Arthur J. Magida, author of Prophet of Rage: A Life of Louis Farrakhan and His NationThe story of Marion Barry is the story of a life and rare opportunity recklessly misspent, and Jonetta Rose Barras, who knows Washington much better than most, captures this story with sympathy and sensitivity. In an unflinching dissection of man and opportunity, she shows us why and how Marion Barry cheated himself, his city, and all the rest of us. -Wesley Pruden, Editor-in-chief, Washington TimesThe most comprehensive and descriptive study to date of the elusive Marion Barry. Because of her thorou