"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? Why are African-Americans so enamored of him? And why, despite his return to power, has Barry’s story so dramatically lost promise?In The Last of the Black Emperors, author Jonetta Rose Barras explains the many paradoxes of Marion Barry’s career, and documents the growth of his racial and political identities parallel with those of his largely black constituency." Journalist Jonetta Rose Barras takes a hard-boiled look at the rise and fall of Washington, D.C., Mayor Marion Barry, who was reelected after serving time for smoking crack. Barras, in her top- notch reporting, lays bare the racially charged Washington political landscape in which Barry operates, writing, "Some blacks are leery of Barry. Having found their way inside corporate boardrooms and suburban neighborhoods, they temper their praise for him, labeling his race-based politics divisive.... Still, their cultural connections demand that they respect and marvel at Barry...." Barras chronicles Barry's beginnings, from his '60s student work in Nashville, Tennessee (which is also discussed in broader scope in David Halberstam's The Children ), to his ascendance from the D.C. school board to the mayor's office. But Barras also calls into account the effectiveness of Barry's '60s-style political activism and the near-despotic characteristics of his generation's hold on power. "Twenty years from now," she writes, "if today's new black leaders provide for their own timely exits from the political stage--something their predecessors failed to do--they will help realize the dream of civil rights era activists." Barras's book is a sometimes scathing account of Barry's peril and promise that also serves as a cautionary tale for future black leaders. --Eugene Holley Jr. Barras, a columnist and former reporter for the conservative Washington Times, offers here an intriguing account of the rise and fall from grace of the beleaguered mayor of Washington, DC. She presents a scathing indictment of a "master" politician who gained fame in the 1960s as a Civil Rights activist and as the first chair of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). Barras details Barry's womanizing, charisma, addiction to drugs, arrest and imprisonment, and brief resurrection to the mayoralty for a fourth term. She compares his plight with that of the late African American congressman Adam Clayton Powell Jr., who fought diligently to regain his seat, only to lose it shortly thereafter. She also contrasts his leadership style with the current crop of black mayors who are making great progress in their respective cities. With keen insight, Barras takes us inside the corridors of DC politics, walking us through the maze of scandals, deal-making, and corrupt government officials. A well-researched analysis; highly recommended for political science collections.AAnn Burns, "Library Journal" Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. Barras likens the controversial mayor of Washington, D.C., with Anansi the spider, the mythic figure of African folklore, a trickster who occasionally falls victim to his own schemes. Barry is a complex character, masterful at manipulating money and people but unable to harness his own destructive appetites. He is now infamous for the day in 1991 when he was videotaped smoking crack cocaine in a hotel room, which led to his conviction and disgrace, followed by redemption and triumph when he returned to recapture the mayor's office. In Barras' assessment, the man who came to the capital in 1965 to lay the groundwork for civil rights advancements contributed to its economic and political slide backward, having won a measure of home rule only to lose it when the federal government moved to retake the financially strapped city. Barras draws parallels between Barry's rise and fall and the troubled careers of other black leaders who came of age during the civil rights movement. She also draws parallels to other big-city bosses, reelected despite scandals and virulent criticism. Vanessa Bush In The Last of the Black Emperors, author Jonetta Rose Barras explains the many paradoxes of Marion Barry's career, and documents the growth of his racial and political identities parallel with those of his largely black constituency. Barras places the D.C. mayor in context, comparing him with politicians - black and non-black - of his generation, and with "the new black leaders" who have rendered his style obsolete. Focusing on the period from Barry's 1992 prison release, through his 1994 mayoral victory, and the subse