Marion Barry, 4-term D.C. mayor dies at 78

Marion Barry Jr., the former mayor of Washington, D.C. passed away on Sunday, November 23rd, 2014 at United Medical Center in Washington at the age of 78. A spokesperson for the hospital said that Mr. Barry’s death was due to hypertensive cardiovascular disease, with kidney disease and diabetes contributing.

The most influential and savvy local politician of his generation, Mr. Barry dominated the city’s political landscape in the final quarter of the 20th century, also serving for 15 years on the D.C. Council, whose Ward 8 seat he held until his death. Before his first stint on the council, he was president of the city’s old Board of Education. There was a time when his critics, in sarcasm but not entirely in jest, called him “Mayor for Life.” Into the first dozen years of the new millennium, he remained a highly visible player on the city’s political stage, but by then on the periphery, no longer at the center.

Read the full story: Marion Barry dies at 78; 4-term D.C. mayor was the most powerful local politician of his generation

Read more about Marion Barry’s life and death in the New York Times