Honoring Marion Barry: A Recollection

By Malik Thompson, on March 13th, 2019

A young Barry with Dr. King*

Following the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968, Black people throughout the United States snapped. Witnessing a man nationally considered a symbol of peace and hope brutally murdered became the trigger for what is known as the ‘King assassination riots’. In major cities, from Baltimore and Chicago, to smaller cities like Wilmington, Detroit, Black people across the nation unleashed their pent up rage regarding racism in the United States. In DC in particular, there was an estimated $25 million in property damages, and innumerable businesses were forced to close. Black residents made up 50% of the city’s population in 1960, that number sky-rocketed to over 70% in 1970, due in part to the flight of white residents following the 1968 rebellions. With certain sections of DC in a ruin-like state, millions of dollars in property damage, and the resultant injuries and deaths following the rebellions, the city was in desperate need of a strong Black leader. Enter Marion Barry, a man who would become as beloved as he became notorious, whose vision set in place many of the safety nets low-income residents in DC are able to use to their benefit now.

Once, when speaking with a former colleague about Marion Barry, she decided Google search the phrase ‘DC mayor’. One of the search options in the bars below went on to read ‘DC mayor smokes crack’. Anyone who is remotely aware of the sting operation the FBI orchestrated with Barry’s ex-girlfriend Hazel ‘Rasheeda’ Moore would immediately understand this search option had been referring to Barry.

Before going into Barry’s history, I’d like to write my personal experiences with Barry; I’ve had the opportunity to cross paths Barry twice in my life. Once, when David Catania set out to enact laws that would potentially have parents arrested for the accumulative tardies and absences of their children from school, I, alongside a cadre of young people in a youth program I had been apart of during my teens, decided to testify against this law before the DC Council. While in support of the law initially, after hearing the testimony of four young Black men, Barry became vehement in his opposition to Catania’s law, changing his opinion immediately after our testimony. Then, as an eighteen year-old just stepping into the political sphere, having my voice acknowledged by, both, a politician and an elder was a foundational moment in such a strange, turbulent, and developmental time in my life. What may have been a year later, I attended a community gathering about the injustices the US government had committed against a group of men known as the Cuban Five. Held at St. Stephen’s church in Columbia Heights, the drawing point for this gathering was the opportunity to hear legendary activist Angela Davis speak. People of various backgrounds participated in that evening’s event, filling the church and enduring DC’s infamous humidity to get a chance to share

Photo of Barry with wife and child being honored at the gala of the Gertrude Stein Democratic club, a gay political organization*

space with Davis.

After Davis spoke, Barry revealed himself to the crowd; strutting to the podium area in a full suit in spite of the heat. At the sight of Barry, the event’s attendees exploded into hand claps, cheers, and camera flashes. Standing beside Davis, Barry seemed content and majestic.

Of course, me at eighteen had no knowledge of Barry outside of stories I had been told by my mother and other adults. Me at seventeen had no ability to comprehend the significance of the man before me.

Born in Mississippi and raised in Memphis, Tennessee, Barry was raised by his mother and step-father alongside nine other children. Demonstrating an aptitude for political organizing and resistance early on, Barry, in his memoir, recalls rallying his fellow Black paper boys to hold their employer accountable to taking them on a trip for meeting a sales quota. Not only did Barry possess a knack for political action and leadership, Barry also harbored a deep hunger for education. Graduating from LeMoyne-Owen College in 1958, Barry acquired a Master of Science degree from Fisk University and went on to pursue a Ph.D in chemistry from the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. A dissertation away from receiving his doctoral degree, Barry, experiencing discrimination as the only Black person in his program and sensing the political urgency of the times,

gave up pursuing his studies to take on . . . → Read More: Honoring Marion Barry: A Recollection

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Not Enough Money for Low-Income DC Residents, But Tax Cut for Wealthy Unchanged

By Guest Contributor, on May 31st, 2016

Cross-posted from Poverty & Policy Written by Kathryn Baer

As you local readers probably know, the DC Council passed a budget for the upcoming fiscal year last week. Some changes in what the Mayor had proposed for programs that serve low-income residents.

The DC Fiscal Policy Institute’s overview of the budget confirms what I’d expected. Mostly, a bit more here, a bit more there. No more for some critical priorities. And less for at least one. (The one large, new investment it cites — for new family shelters — isn’t part of the budget proper.)

I suppose we’ll be told that the Council did its best with what it had to work with. I don’t know because I don’t know nearly enough about the funding needs and prospective impacts of every program and service the budget covers.

But I do know that the Council could have had more revenues to work with. It had only to postpone — or better yet, repeal — the tax cuts prior legislation has made automatic whenever revenues rise above the estimate used for the latest budget.

The triggers have already reduced otherwise available revenues by many millions of dollars — dollars the Council could have used to shore up under-funded programs.

So much water under the bridge. And as the Chairman, who likes those triggers says, the revenues lost from cuts not yet triggered couldn’t have been used for the new budget. But the Council could have had them to spend as early as next fiscal year — and thereafter.

All tax cuts are not created equal, of course. Some on the pending list will benefit residents who’ve got enough income to owe taxes, but not a lot.

The second cut on that list, however, is a higher threshold for the estate tax. The most recent revenue forecast indicates that it will lock in soon, DCFPI’s latest account of the trigger impacts says.

So henceforth, no assets a deceased resident leaves to heirs will be taxable until they’re worth $2 million — twice the current minimum.

As things stand now, this will be the first of two estate tax cuts. The second — and considerably larger — will raise the threshold to the same minimum as applies to the federal estate tax, currently $5.45 million.

Why the District should embrace a regressive measure gained in a crisis by Congressional Republicans who could never be elected here baffles me.

True, the Tax Revision Commission recommended parity with the federal threshold, including the ongoing upward adjustments for inflation. But the Council could have taken a pass, just as it has on the revenue-raisers in the Commission’s package.

The District will forfeit $18.8 million next fiscal year alone, according to DCFPI’s estimate. And for what?

Not so that more money can pass to charities tax free. Bequests to them are already exempt. Not so that surviving spouses will have more to live on, since what passes directly to them will also still reduce the value of what counts toward the threshold.

Not even necessarily what other heirs wind up with, since a will-maker can give them as much as $14,000* each or the equivalent every year while still alive — again reducing the value of what’s potentially taxable afterwards.

The estate tax giveaway won’t just make larger investments in programs that reduce hardships for poor and near-poor residents unnecessarily difficult. It will increase income inequality in the District by giving the rich more, as well as denying the poor supports and services that help close the income gap from the bottom.

And the gap will grow from one generation to the next in part because of the way the taxable value of assets is determined. Essentially, it’s set at their value when the person bequeathing them dies.

So heirs pay capital gains taxes when they sell the assets for more, but no tax on how much the assets’ value increased between the time they were purchased and the time inherited.

And, of course, heirs don’t have to sell them. They can pass them along to their heirs, compounding the revenue loss — and wealth at the top of the income scale.

The estate tax then is a way of partly recouping the loss and, at the same time, averting a rollback to the inordinate wealth concentration of the Robber Baron days.

The higher the threshold, the less an already-shaky control on income inequality can do. And the gap between the richest and poorest District households is already . . . → Read More: Not Enough Money for Low-Income DC Residents, But Tax Cut for Wealthy Unchanged

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How DC Government Works

By Liane Scott, on September 23rd, 2012

DC government only works well when DC residents are involved. Let’s face it, most of us don’t know how to get involved (beyond voting) in a way that has an impact on the laws and policies that ultimately get put into place. If you want to do more than just vote, come and learn how at the following event: Empower DC & DC Jobs with Justice Present the Grassroots Leadership Education Program HOW DC GOVERNMENT WORKS How Does the DC Council Function? How Are Laws Made? What do Committees Do? Facilitated by Empower DC staff organizers Tuesday, September 25th 6:30-8:30 PM Southeast Library – 403 7th St, SE Adjacent to the Eastern Market Metro Wheelchair accessible location RSVP to Schyla at (202) 234-9119 x 101 housing@empowerdc.org * limited child care available, please RSVP * With Support From: DC Child Care Collective

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